


Danse Russe

by Frayach



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, HP: EWE, M/M, Novella, Soulmates, World Travel, not a wip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-09 11:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 140,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frayach/pseuds/Frayach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True Love. Soul Mates. They're just words until put to the test. Harry and Draco have a bond that was forged in the hell of the post-war years and pulled them both back from an abyss of nihilism and self-destruction. Nothing can break it, or so they believed. But True Love can demand sacrifices too great to bear and deeds too terrible to justify.</p><p>
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</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after reading calanthe_fanfic's _Mudhoney Trilogy_ (LJ) which is sadly not accessible without a membership, and she's no longer accepting new members. It's a shame because the Trilogy was my inspiration to start Writing About Sex in a serious way. It's the most unapologetically graphic piece of erotica I've ever read, and it inspired everything I've written after reading it for the first time. It is unflinchingly uncomfortable to read because of the taboos it trespasses on, but it is also one of the most romantic stories out there. Anyway, I was intrigued by the relationship between Harry and Draco that eventually emerged through the three stories (stories that are solely 100% about sex) - to me, it felt unassailable. Perfect. Absolute. I fell in love with the relationship Cal created and asked if I could write a ten-years-later sequel. She graciously said yes, and _Danse Russe_ is the result. You don't need to have read Cal's stories to understand this one; you only need to know that Harry and Draco have a bond that is stronger than both love and sex combined. The possibility that either could survive the death of the other is unimaginable - they're not as much soul mates as they are halves of a spiritual entity that exists only because of them. Lol, I suck at writing summaries. Just go read the dang thing . . .
> 
> A huge "thank you" is in order to marianna_merlo (LJ) for her superb beta work. Editing a novel-length fic is no small feat. Thank you, sweetie.

The courtyard outside is just descending into darkness when I hear the discreet _tap tap tap_ of a beak on glass. I look up to find Harry’s owl peering in at me beseechingly. Or, perhaps I just imagine an entreaty when, in fact, there is mere impatience. She taps again, and I stand and stretch with a quick glance at my watch. Just after five o’ clock. With the time difference, it could be an invitation to dinner . . . Unless, of course, he’s still in Irkutsk, in which case it could be an invitation to breakfast. Without an ounce of surprise, I discover that I couldn’t care less as long as a trip to Irkutsk means I get to kiss Siberian snow off his lips.

I open the narrow library window, and Fred hops onto the casement, holding out his leg. Unrolling the parchment, I read the neat, careful script:

>   
> _Draco,  
>  It’s four o’ clock. Harry just Floo-called to say he arrived back in St. Petersburg this afternoon. He asked me to send Fred to find out if you might have a day or two free for a visit. I tried you on your mobile but got your voicemail. You must be in the archives at the Bodleian, or some equally Muggle, electronically-unfriendly establishment. Don’t bother writing back – he said he’d be at his flat waiting to hear from you.  
>  \- Hermione_

A familiar wave of elation sweeps over me. I set the parchment alight and hold it out the window, watching flames caress its edges until it’s consumed entirely. I brush the ash from my hands and turn back to the table, which is covered in books and scrolls. Three months. Three unutterably long and torturous months since we stood under the grimy stone archway beside the Neva docks as the sun rose behind us, kissing and kissing and kissing. Devouring each other. Our chins slick with saliva like the rutting adolescents we once could have been, rather than the middle-aged men we’re rapidly becoming . . . .

I tell the witch at the special collections desk that I’ll be back in a couple days, and I ask her to leave the books as I’ve left them. The scrolls, however, I take with me. They know me well here, and I’m sure that no one would ever meddle with them (not that anyone would be able to read them if they tried). But old habits die hard, and I’m more at ease when the scrolls are locked in the fifth level of the chest in my study. Peace of mind is in scarce supply these days, and I take it where I can find it.

Deciding to avoid the inevitable interruptions and delays that a stop at the Manor would entail, I Apparate to the flat in Kensington and start packing without bothering to remove my coat and gloves. When everything is shrunken and stowed away, I take a deep breath and firecall Harry. Although it’s been years since that night we first kissed and I decided in half a heartbeat to leave my wife, it’s still always the same: my pulse races and staggers when I hear his voice, when I glimpse that shock of black hair . . . . Our conversation is brief and to the point, and within ten minutes, I’m Apparating to the address he’s given me.

The venue is tacky and vulgar, but that hasn’t deterred the queue of tourists standing in the stinging November rain. I wait for the horse-drawn _droshkies_ to pass before crossing St. Isaac’s Square, side-stepping the omnipresent piles of manure seeping into the deep groves between the cobblestones. He’s assured me the tickets are already bought and paid for, so I make straight for the box office.

“Angleeskee?” asks a girl in black lipstick, and I nod. My Russian is passable at best. Years of Transfiguration classes, and McGonagall’s ruler, drummed into me the lesson that it is better to not say a word at all than to mangle it beyond recognition. 

“Two,” I say, holding up two fingers. “For Potter.”

She hefts a cardboard box on to the counter and starts thumbing through its contents, finally pulling out a plain brown envelope.

“Five hundred, twenty roubles,” she says, holding back the envelope as though she’s afraid I’m on the verge of reaching through the window and seizing it. Which I might have been, actually. If I weren’t in such an indulgent mood.

Predictable. This is what I get for setting foot inside this bloody tourist trap. I shake my head and adopt an exaggerated frown.

“He paid already,” I say.

“Five hundred, twenty roubles,” she says again, her accented English weighing heavily on her pierced tongue.

“Two hundred, sixty.” 

“Three hundred, seventy.”

“Fine,” I sigh and pull out my wallet. We do a little dance, with her hand holding the tickets half-extended, and mine the currency. At last, she huffs and throws the tickets on the counter. I hand her the money with a gracious smile that I know doesn’t reach my eyes, and I turn away. Two hundred and sixty roubles lighter.

The shabby foyer is filling with people, their hair and clothes streaming with water. Someone shakes out their umbrella too close to me, and I’m showered with droplets. Clearly I shouldn’t have removed the _Impervius_ when I came in . . ..

“Draco.”

I turn to find him standing just behind me. How he was able to get that close without me noticing . . . . Ah, well. Some things never change, and I suspect he enjoys it too much to bother saying anything. Enjoys catching me unaware. Even after all this time.

“Harry.”

His eyes are bright behind his glasses, and I can tell he’s been drinking. Holding those eyes with mine, I lean forward and inhale the scent of his lips as though they’re a newly uncorked bottle of Château d’Yquem Sauternes.

“A few after-work Diakas?”

He laughs. “You can’t smell vodka.”

I smile because I’ve been caught and don’t care. He knows I love the smell of his mouth just as much as its taste. 

“What are we doing here?” I ask.

“I thought we were here to see a ballet.” His eyes glitter more from mischief now than drink. “Aren’t those the tickets you have there? Aren’t they for _The Nutcracker_?”

“You know what I mean. Why are we _here_? As in, why aren’t we at the Mariinsky? Or even the Hermitage?”

He smiles enigmatically. “You can go to the Mariinsky anytime.”

“What, and this place is in some unfathomable way more exclusive?” I arch an eyebrow, because that’s what I do when I’m with him.

“No,” he says, “not exclusive. Just sordid. You know how I love to watch you negotiate yourself in such surroundings.”

We’re making our way up the narrow, rickety stairs to the side balconies on the second level. The carpet under our shoes is worn and threadbare, the dull wood peeking through in patches.

“If that’s what you were in the mood for, I know of at least a half dozen clubs we could be at right now whose entertainment wouldn’t include a fifth-rate ballet company and whose . . . audiences . . . wouldn’t contain hundreds of _matryoshki_ -wielding tourists.”

“I know,” he says. “And I probably know of a half dozen more, especially after living here for the past nine months. But that’s not the kind of ‘sordid’ I mean. And besides . . .” We’re stuck in a queue as the crowd ahead of us attempts to sift through the low doorways into the cramped boxes. He leans over, and his lips brush my ear when he speaks. “ . . . I don’t want to take the risk that there’ll be anyone but me fucking you tonight.” He draws out the word ‘fucking’ so that the sound of it feels like a strand of saliva spun between his mouth and my earlobe – heavy and laden with promise.

“Mmm,” I murmur, trying to sound as enigmatic as he looked earlier. “Shall we?” The crowd has thinned, and I gesture toward the door to our box. “Tell me you booked the whole thing just for us.”

He laughs. “Oh, you _wish_ , Malfoy.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re having me on, right? Tell me you did this – ” I say with a hand gesture meant to encompass the entire theatre in all its squalidness “– so that you can fuck me blind to the dulcet strains of _The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy_.”

Now he is really laughing. Snorting, even, in that way he does sometimes.

“Shit,” he gasps. “Hearing you put it like that makes me wish I _had_ booked a private box.”

“But you didn’t,” I say, not sure which is going to win out – my exasperation or my delight in seeing him laugh again.

“Nope. Sorry,” he wheezes, still trying to compose himself.

I roll my eyes again, but I know he can see me smiling because he suddenly sobers and pulls me aside into a shallow alcove, away from the press of tourists in their damp gabardine macs.

“Draco.” He nuzzles beneath my open collar, inhaling deeply. I feel the caress of his breath in the same instant that I hear him say my name again. “Draco.” The pit of my stomach turns liquid as the blood rushes to my groin. I want him. It’s been so long . . . _too_ long.

“We could skip the ballet,” I volunteer hopefully.

He presses a generous open-mouthed kiss to my throat before pulling away and standing, head cocked, appearing to consider the suggestion.

“Nah,” he says at last.

“Don’t you mean ‘ _nyet_?’” I reply, masking my disappointment and minor irritation at his game-playing. But then again, that’s always been a big part of our relationship- the games. It’s one of the ways we know we’ve been thinking of each other over the days, weeks, months we’ve spent apart. The more elaborate the game, the more planning involved, then the more we know that the other has been thinking . . . .

“ _Nyet_ ,” he whispers in my ear, and I shiver.

We end up sharing a box with four Yanks and an elderly German couple. One of the Yanks speaks Russian. He asks an apparently lone usher for opera glasses, enquiring whether we’d like a pair as well. I thank him and hand him fifty roubles, but he waves it away and pays the usher from his own wallet. Harry looks disappointed.

“Damn,” he whispers in my ear. “I was hoping for some obnoxious and easily-scandalized box mates.”

I nod in the direction of the German couple. “I suppose you’ll just have to put all your eggs in that basket.”

The Russian-speaking Yank hands us a pair of glasses just as the orchestra begins playing the overture. And just as I’d augured, the musicianship is _terrible_. Ghastly, in fact. I grit my teeth, but I can’t keep myself from twisting in my seat with each strained note. Beside me, Harry wipes the lenses of the opera glasses on the hem of his shirt.

“Fingerprints,” he whispers, and he grins when I shudder with revulsion.

“You are evil,” I whisper back, and his grin widens maliciously.

“When it comes to you, I try. But, Malfoy,” he whispers, leaning closer, “tell me. How is it that you’d let a dozen blokes fuck that pretty mouth of yours . . .” his eyes drop to my mouth, and he traces a fingertip over the length of my bottom lip ever so gently “. . . without thinking twice, but things like chipped dinner plates and dirty opera glasses freak you out completely?”

It’s a valid question, and it deserves an honest answer. His fingertip lingers on my lip, and I kiss it softly. If we weren’t crammed into a box with six other people all practically sitting in one another’s laps, I would have drawn it into my mouth. Unhygienic balustrades and opera glasses be damned.

“Because,” I say. “When I’m fucking or getting fucked, I’m consciously – and _purposefully_ – courting death. But when I’m just trying to eat my dinner at some manky little curry shop off Gallowgate, I’m trying to do just that: eat my dinner.”

He chuckles. “You’re still cross about that night in the Barras, aren’t you. Get over it, Malfoy. That was three years ago.”

“Yes, well, _you’re_ still chaffed about the time I took you to the opening night of that de Kooning exhibit, remember that?”

“I didn’t have a problem with the art,” he huffs. “I kind of like abstract realism . . .”

“Abstract expressionism.”

“Whatever. As I was saying - I had no problem with the art. It was the endless parade of pompous wankers that we had to spend the evening ‘catching up’ with.” He makes little quotation marks around his head when he says the words “catching up.” “Plus,” he adds, “I was starving, and asparagus tips and prawn scrotums aren’t exactly hearty fare.”

I chuckle, feeling suddenly warm and indulgent - and _affectionate_ \- in a way that only he, and he alone, can make me feel.

“Don’t try to pass off that barbarian act on me. I’ve seen where you live – Kensington,” I say in a cough. “Plus, I know you own Sferra sheets, a case of 1995 Montrose, at least one CD by Brian Ferneyhough, and more than a couple of Ascot Chang shirts.” 

“You bought me that CD, and it’s terrible.” He’s pouting, and it’s adorable.

“Yes, well, maybe it is,” I admit. “Nevertheless, my point stands . . .”

“Indeed it does,” he purrs and slips a hand between my thighs.

“Oh, you . . .” I whisper. “You are naughty, naughty, _naughty_.”

“Like I said before,” he murmurs, “when it comes to you, I try.” To punctuate the word “comes,” he slides his fingertips under my balls and cups his palm around the whole swollen package, kneading gently but firmly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the Yanks watching us. He’s young, sweet-faced, chubby, and obviously gayer than a Sunday in June. His eyes are on Harry’s hand in my lap, and I spread my legs to give both of them better access. Harry presses the tip of one of his fingers against my anus, and even through the layers of fabric, I can feel its heat, its probing intensity. I glance at his face and notice the tiny beads of perspiration forming on his upper lip. Somehow I resist the urge to lean over and lap them up.

Harry’s ministrations to my throbbing cock have managed to take my mind off the horror that is the orchestra’s overture, but then the _Marche_ begins, and the dancers emerge from the wings. Even without opera glasses, the yellow stains in the armpits of their costumes are as clear as day.

“Hhhmmm,” Harry murmurs contemplatively, “Clara looks a bit peaky, don’t you think?”

“Well, I can’t imagine why,” I whisper. “After all, it’s not like she has to moonlight as a waitress, chambermaid _and_ dockside whore just to pay for the two-room flat she shares with her grandmother, parents, brother, sister-in-law, cousins . . .” 

“Heavens!” He arches an eyebrow at me. “Sounds like someone’s a mite cranky. What’s wrong, _mon cher_? Aren’t you enjoying the ballet?”

His finger is probing in earnest now, circling, caressing, until my whole rectum pulses in time with my heart. I shift my weight in an effort to ease the growing pressure in my balls.

“I mean, look at all those adorable little children with their Christmas pressies.” He passes me the glasses with his free hand.

“None of those quote-unquote ‘children’ are under thirty,” I hiss. “This must be the company where old ballet dancers go to die.”

He chuckles, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the Yank swallow compulsively. He’s draped his coat over his lap, and I watch his hand disappear underneath. I turn to Harry and lean my head against his shoulder.

“We have an audience.”

“We do?” As always, he’s incapable of containing his glee. I gesture with my chin in the Yank’s direction. “Oh,” he says appreciatively. “Shall we give him a show?”

“Why not?” I whisper. “We’ll be doing him a favour if we distract him from the performance and he fails to remember a solitary second of it.”

“Do you want me to make you come?”

The question is so open and frank and oh so _Harry_. My cock lurches in his hand, and I stifle a groan.

“How about I make _you_ come?” I reply.

He glances at me questioningly.

“Are you sure?” He looks down at my crotch where the dark grey wool of my trousers is stained to black. “I can feel you,” he whispers in my ear with a moan. “You’re so close. I can feel it – all those little spasms in your arse, the way your cock’s twitching. Draco. Let me make you come.”

The sound of his voice, the staggering _want_ in it and the promise of fulfilment . . . I am tempted, and he’s right, of course. I _am_ close. It’s been too long since I last had his hands on me . . . .

I take a deep breath and pull his hand out of my lap. “Not yet,” I whisper. “Not here.”

He’s disappointed, but he doesn’t argue.

“You, on the other hand . . . ,” I murmur and, without extending a spoken invitation, open my mind like a lotus opens to the sun, like I opened my legs for him earlier. He feels it and groans, dipping in for a taste, and suddenly the stifling box with its scent of wet wool and musty upholstery vanishes, taking with it the peeling gilt and cheap velvet, fraying at the edges and rubbed bare. Even the tinny orchestra fades away, and I feel him drinking from my mind like a man who’s been dying from thirst. Images flicker by – memories, fantasies – and I watch his head fall back and his legs fall open. I’m not touching him, but I can see his erection straining hard against the fine wool of his trousers.

I start at the beginning. Why not? It’s not like I don’t know how _The Nutcracker_ turns out. Berlin. A younger Harry, no tell-tale grey at his temples, with his hand in his jeans adjusting his dick and gazing down, smiling cruelly, mouth moving in a silent _Oh, you’re welcome_ . . . That first time in my dungeon with my hand buried up past the wrist in Harry’s body, the tendons in my forearm standing out starkly in the flickering light, and _oh!_ . . . Harry’s face . . . and then the second time, when our mouths first opened to one another. I pause and concentrate on that moment, that kiss, drawing it out until it’s slower than real time. I hear my voice whisper his name, drawing out the syllables like honey on a spoon.

Beside me, he’s thrusting his hips shallowly in time with the Harry in my mind. We’re in the mahogany-panelled men’s room at Claridge’s, skiving off from the endless droning speeches at another charity dinner. My hands white-knuckling the rim of the toilet bowl, my robes pushed up past my waist and Armani trousers around my ankles, my arse in the air. Harry’s balls slapping wetly against mine because he’s already spent the last ten minutes eating my hole like a pig at a trough, and my thighs are slick with spit and lube.

He leans over and rests his head on my shoulder, the thrusting of his hips subtle but not slowing, not in the slightest.

“I’m going to come in my trousers,” he whispers. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” I whisper back. “That is _precisely_ what I want.”

On the stage, the spotlights dim, and the Rat King bounds out, scattering the dancers and drawing the Prince – Clara forgotten in the wings – into a single beam of shared animosity. They crouch, circling one another as the music darkens and intensifies, their bodies strung tight with menacing promise. The world has shrunk to the pin-prick of a dilated pupil, and they are all that remains, and, perhaps, all that ever was . . .

“Show me,” he whispers.

He doesn’t have to say anything else. I know what he means.

I close my eyes and open my mind further.

A boy on the edge of his seventeenth birthday standing alone in a shower, the pallor of his naked body absorbing the sallow hues of the institutional tiles. The wounds that garnish his flesh are nearly healed, but he’s picked the scabs in places, and the water is pink as it swirls down the drain. His pale hair lies in thick, wet strings against his neck, and his eyes are screwed shut as he strokes his cock, driving his skinny hips forward into his hand over and over and over. And with each thrust he grinds out a name. _Potter. Potter. Potter. . ._

_. . . Harry!_

As always, I feel the tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes and slide down my cheeks. Two tears. One for the boy in the shower, and one for the damaged man he became. Beside me, Harry’s coming, the liquid stain in his trousers growing and spreading like the flush on his beautiful face.

He leans over and kisses away the tear on the cheek closest to him.

“Let’s get out of here,” he whispers, his voice scratchy.

On stage, the Rat King and his black-clad minions are closing in on the Prince in a writhing circle of whiskers and claws and tails as sinuous as a whip’s lash. The Prince is trapped, and he knows it, still he’s fighting back. Defiant to the end. But at last, he crumples at the Rat King’s feet, nothing but a broken doll once more.

The curtain falls, and the lights come on to a smattering of applause. We stand, both of us buttoning our coats quickly, glancing knowing smiles at one another as we gather gloves and scarves and Harry’s umbrella.

“So that was the end of Act I?” I say as we wait our turn filing out of the box. “What happened to the second tableau? And where the hell was the Waltz of the Damn Snowflakes?”

“I hadn’t realised Tchaikovsky wrote a movement involving cursed precipitation,” he says.

“Potter,” I hiss under my breath. “Have I mentioned yet this evening what an incorrigible smart-arse you are?”

He laughs and slips an arm around my waist, pulling me against him for a moment and kissing my temple.

“And have _I_ mentioned yet this evening how incorrigibly gorgeous _you_ are?” he purrs. I feign an exasperated huff and return his kiss.

We weave our way through the plodding, shuffling crowd until at last we find a side door opening onto a dripping, trash-strewn alley. It’s still raining. Puddles reflect the orange street lights as we tramp along Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, heads down and collars turned up to our ears.

“Mind walking?” I ask. Compared to the close musty air of the theatre, the night outside feels refreshing, laden though it is with coal smoke and exhaust fumes.

“Fine with me,” he says. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to try Apparating after that orgasm I just had.”

“I don’t think creaming the silk lining of your Brioni trousers significantly increases the likelihood of a splinching incident,” I reply.

“You never know,” he says.

We walk in silence for a while as the bells of Saint Isaac’s toll, seemingly in time with our footsteps. At the intersection of Bolshaya Morskaya and Voznesenskiy Prospekt, I gaze longingly at the warm light emanating from the door of the Astoria Hotel. We stayed there together for about a week when he first moved to St. Petersburg and hadn’t settled on a flat yet. We’d fucked in the _parilka_ in the hotel’s elegant _banya_ at least three times. And despite it being so hot that I thought my skin would remain an embarrassing shade of pink for the rest of my life, we’d kept going back. He’d loved it so much, how could I refuse? Although we’d always cast a sturdy _Muffliato_ , I knew it thrilled him to think that someone could walk in on us at any moment . . .

“A Sickle for those,” he says with a mischievous grin, no doubt tracking my esurient gaze to the other side of the square.

“Just remembering our time at the Astoria.”

“Mmmm,” he hums appreciatively. “I miss that _banya_.”

I give a noncommittal hurumph.

“Oh, go on. You loved it, and you know it. Especially getting switched with those birch branches. I’m surprised, given your erotic tastes, that you’d never encountered the _vennik_ before.” His grin turns distinctly predatory. “And _I_ loved how the steam turned that pale arse of yours rosy as a virgin’s blush.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Potter.”

“What?” he says, feigning innocence. “I’m a man with well-honed aesthetic tastes.”

“You’re a man with well-honed _something_.”

“After more than three months, I should think so,” he replies.

We cross the square and proceed north on Voznesenskiy. Both of us steal one last look at the Astoria’s windows as we pass.

“Did I ever tell you about room eleven?”

I turn to him, frowning in thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think you did. What about it?”

“The bartender at the Kandinsky told me about it,” he says. “And, of course, I had to visit the room before I moved into my flat, just to . . . well, you know, see if I could _feel_ anything.”

“Which bartender?” I ask. “The good-looking one?”

“No, the other one.” He sounds disproportionately sad for the fact.

I snort. “Give up already. That bloke was straighter than Nevskiy Prospekt.”

“I know,” he sighs. “But I thought for sure that once he caught a glimpse of you that we could talk him into a three-way. Or a two-way, with me watching. I wasn’t fussed.” He sighs again. I give him a playful nudge in the ribs with my elbow.

“Anyway,” I say. “What’s the story with room eleven?”

“Well, apparently that’s the room where Sergei Yesenin hung himself.”

“You mean the poet?”

“Yeah. He was married for a while to the dancer, Isadora Duncan, I think. Apparently, he was completely mental . . .”

“Fancy that,” I say. “A completely mental Russian poet.”

“I know, and after living here I think I’ve come up with a working theory for why that’s not exactly an uncommon occurrence,” he says.

“Does it have something to do with the virtually non-existent daylight in the winter?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t know, having not spent a winter here yet,” he says. “Actually, my theory has more to do with the opposite extreme. The nearly 24-hour daylight we had this summer nearly made _me_ mental, and as you well know, I’m neither Russian nor a poet.”

I chuckle, remembering the sappy poem he’d drunkenly penned me on a cocktail napkin at some Ministry function years ago. He didn’t know it, but of course I’d kept it.

“Anyway. Sergei Yesenin,” he says. “Apparently before he hung himself from the heating pipes, he took the time to slash his wrists and write on the walls with his blood.”

I shiver, remembering our own room at the Astoria with its splendid, but somehow lonely, view of the Admiralty Tower and Decemberists’ Square.

“What did he write?” I ask.

“ _To die is not new – but neither is it new to be alive_.”

I scrunch up my nose in distaste. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You got me,” he says. “Like I said, I’m not a barmy Russian poet.”

Unsurprisingly, given our circumstances at the moment, Yesenin’s words spook me - and when I’m spooked, I get angry.

“Typical,” I say. “Bloody writers and their bloody cryptic statements. Maybe if they got out during the daytime a bit and lay off the Absinthe . . .”

“What? And your bloody composers are paragons of stability?”

He stops and points to a window on the third floor of a nearby brownstone. “Ha! And what a coincidence,” he says. “That’s the flat where Tchaikovsky poisoned himself.”

I look to where he’s pointing, squinting through the rain and the orange light and the thick black strands of telephone wire. The decorative scrollwork framing the third floor windows is crumbling and caked with grime.

“Tchaikovsky lived _there_?”

“I’m assuming so,” he says. “At least that’s where he died.”

I feel a sudden sadness that is out of proportion to the news that a nineteenth-century Muggle composure died in this dilapidated tenement. But I don’t want to probe any deeper, for fear of what I might find lurking underneath . . .

“Tchaikovsky didn’t poison himself,” I say. “He died of cholera.”

“That’s not what Aleksandra Orlova said in her book I read over the summer,” he says. “She says Tchaikovsky poisoned himself over a period of weeks by adding small amounts of arsenic to every glass of water he drank. And do you want to know why?”

“Not really,” I answer truthfully. “But I suppose you’re going to tell me anyway.”

He doesn’t hear the heaviness in my voice or, if he does, ascribes it to nothing more than my habitual petulance.

“He was being pressured by the governing board of the conservatory he founded to end his affair with another man.”

“Ah,” I say grimly. “So _The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy_ was autobiographical then.”

“Malfoy,” he says with a hint of irritation in his voice. “You really can be a right bastard sometimes.”

“So I’ve been told,” I reply.

We stand on the curb at the intersection of Nevskiy and Malaya Morskaya Ulitsa, waiting for the tram to pass. I watch the garish steaming windows rumble by, framing the faces of a thousand strangers, and I wonder where all those people are going. Do they have mothers and fathers and spouses and lovers? Do they eat and drink and laugh and shit and curse and fuck and weep and _dance_? Or do they go home alone to empty rooms and cold beds?

“Have you had dinner?” he asks.

I take a deep breath. I’ve kept this feeling of impending doom at bay for weeks, and there is no reason in hell for me to stop now. Now that I have him here beside me. Now that I can reach out and touch the soft line of palest flesh between the top of his glove and the cuff of his shirt.

“No, but I don’t feel like eating out,” I reply. “Do you have anything back at the flat? Or did you not have time to go shopping yet?”

“I picked up a few items,” he says, smiling. “I had a feeling we wouldn’t be going to a restaurant tonight. But tomorrow night . . .” he slips an arm stealthily under mine. “. . . I’ve made us reservations at Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo.” He pauses abruptly. “That is, if you can stay for a couple of days . . .”

His tone is casual, but I see the tension in his eyes, the poorly concealed plea.

“. . . I mean, I know you’re busy . . . ,” he continues when I don’t respond immediately.

I give a snort of bitter facetious laughter.

“Oh no, I’m not busy at all. I’m just racing against time, trying against hope to discover something – _anything_ – to counter the curse or the spell or who-fucking- _knows_ -what, that we _know_ will be used against my lover the instant he finally locates the latest Voldemort wannabe in the darkest outpost of darkest Siberia.”

I try to keep my tone as casual as his, but I know he hears the catch in my voice. He stops suddenly and pulls me against him, wrapping his arms around my back and resting his cheek against mine. His skin is damp and cool with the St. Petersburg rain.

“We’ve been here before,” he says gently. “We’ve done this before and survived.”

“You mean, _you’ve_ done this,” I reply. “I’ve never been a part of your dark-lord-hunting-parties before.”

“No, I meant ‘we’ve done this before’ in the sense that you and I have faced the prospect – the _likelihood_ , even – of my death before. At least twice, in the past five years alone.”

He leans back and looks into my eyes, threading his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck. I swallow hard against the sudden lump in my throat.

“It’s not the same this time, Harry. It’s not the same. It’s never been _this_ dangerous, this risky. And it’s never been _me_ everyone is relying on to make it all turn out all right . . .”

“I know.” He sighs and brushes a kiss against my lips. He steps back, and we start walking again past brightly lit shop windows and the dreary facades of Soviet-era administrative buildings, rendered all the more dreary in comparison with their neighbours.

At last we arrive at the entrance to his building, framed in the city’s signature Palladian doorcase and weighty columns. The burly doorman holds the door open, and we step into the foyer, stamping and shaking the water onto the intricate stone floor, its inlaid rose marble accentuating the _carreaux d’octagones_ pattern, like two enormous shaggy dogs. As often happens in Harry’s company, I’ve forgotten to use magic and only remember the convenience of an _Impervius_ after we’re already inside. 

Like many of the new apartment buildings in the centre of St. Petersburg, Harry’s is a renovated palace. Which explains the rose marble accents in the foyer and the stretched silk brocade on the walls. We take the elevator to the third floor and walk the length of carpeted hallway to the door of his flat. We stand for nearly five minutes while he revises the wards to accommodate a visitor. At last, the hum of a particularly nasty _Interdico_ spell subsides, and he turns the key in the lock.

“At least I know you’re probably not bringing anyone home with you,” I say. “There are few hard-ons that could survive that awkward wait.”

He chuckles and tracks his gaze with excruciating slowness down to my groin.

“Are you insinuating I’ll need to work hard to get you back in the mood?” he asks.

“I don’t know if you’ll have to work all that hard ,” I reply. He and I have been through too much together. I long ago stopped wanting to play petty mind games. That is, if I’d ever wanted to play petty mind games to begin with. Looking back, I’m not sure _wanting_ had anything to do with it. Which is not at all to say that I never wanted to _fuck_ his mind. I did and sometimes still do. But fucking his mind and playing petty games are two very different things . . .

“If you look at me just right, I’m going to orgasm,” I say. “You have no idea, Harry. No _fucking_ idea . . .”

“Oh, but I think I do . . .”

The words are scarcely more than breath, and his eyes burn with a dark fire. He stalks toward me until we’re standing less than a foot apart. The proximity of his body traces my every nerve with violent tremors of desire. I’ve unbuttoned my coat, and he reaches up to slide his hands up the front of my shirt. He’s still wearing his gloves, and I can feel the seams in the fine leather catch against my nipples. I feel my breath hitch in my chest as the sensation goes straight to my groin. His hands continue their slow journey over my collarbones and into the sleeves of both my jacket and my coat. I know he can feel the heat of my body through shirt and gloves because he growls low in his throat and he strips me of my overclothes in one smooth sweep. He seizes my upper arms and squeezes painfully, leaning forward until our mouths almost touch.

“May I kiss you?” he asks, as he always does.

“Yes.” I whisper my customary response and wet my lips with a slow sweep of my tongue. He watches and moans, squeezing my arms even harder. But his kiss, when it finally comes, is chaste and sweet - the tentative kiss of a child. His lips simply rest against mine, trembling softly.

“This,” he whispers. “ _This_ . . . .” 

His voice cracks with sudden almost-tears. I swallow hard but don’t move or even breathe. It’s an unspoken rule between us that whatever we need, we take, and whatever the other needs, we give. I wait to learn my cue.

“This,” he says again, “is what I should have done.”

His lips press against mine. Harder this time but no less gentle.

“This. Just this. No blood, no curses I didn’t even fucking understand . . . .”

“Harry,” I whisper against his mouth. “That was forever ago.”

He cups my chin in his palms, cradling my face like I am the most fragile precious thing he’s ever held. His lips lower against mine again and again, pressing, but not pursing; never actually kissing, as though such a thing were too profane for whatever it is that he’s feeling . . . 

“But it still happened,” he says. “It’s still in _here_.” He caresses my face before sliding his hand up through my hair to cup the back of my head.

“So are many things. You know that.”

“I wanted to _hurt_ you back then. The same way I want to hurt Mefodiy now.”

I shudder at the name. Not only because it yanks me back to the nightmare of the past nine months, but also because it’s so close to ‘Malfoy.’ Swap a letter here, a letter there. . .

“I don’t believe that,” I whisper. “Not in the _same_ way. And, besides, I’d cast a _Cruciatus_ at you . . .”

“Yes, but I made you bleed . . . _Bleed_ , for God’s sake, Draco!”

“You did,” I reply. “And you have, since.”

He’s still cradling the back of my head. He presses me forward until our foreheads touch.

“That’s not the same thing,” he says. “You know that, right?”

I feel myself frown. There is something about his tone - something about the tenor of this conversation - that makes me uneasy. We rarely discuss our sex play; it’s simply understood that it transcends everything that ever happened and everything that may yet come

“Of course,” I say, pulling away so that I can see his eyes. “Harry. Why would you need to ask me that?” I can still feel myself frowning. “Why are you talking like this?”

He shakes his head and tears his eyes from mine.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles. “Just forget it . . . .”

“Is it that you got off on seeing me wank afterward? Is that what’s bothering you?”

He shakes his head mutely.

“Good,” I say. “Because that isn’t the first time you’ve seen that moment, and I _know_ what it does to you. If it really and truly bothered me, I wouldn’t show it to you.”

We stand silently for what feels like a very long time. At last Harry stirs, dropping his hands back to my upper arms. He’s no longer squeezing, and his touch feels heavy, weighted down somehow.

“Hold me,” he whispers. “Just for a little while.”

I reach under his chin and tilt his face up to mine. I need to see his eyes again. I need him to tell me what’s wrong. But instead, I simply nod.

“Of course,” I whisper. “I’ll hold you for as long as you want.”

We strip off gloves and coats and scarves and jackets and shirts and shoes and socks until we’re both wearing nothing but our trousers. He hasn’t turned on the lights, so the only illumination comes from the haze of streetlight seeping through the floor-to-ceiling windows. As is his custom, Harry hasn’t purchased anything for the flat save a vast king-sized mattress and the most expensive sheets he can find (which, given the tastes of the new Russian oligarchy, must be expensive indeed). It’s one of the ways he stays sane doing this job of his. Home – his one and only home – is the flat at the intersection of Kensington Court and Thackery Street. Everywhere else he’s stayed – Prague, Helsinki, Belfast, Cluj-Napoca, Sienna – is merely a resting place, an assignment. Even his flats in Toronto and Reykjavík, where he lived for more than a year, held no more than a mattress, a table, two chairs, and silver tableware for two. I have long suspected this is his quiet way of telling me that there is no one else. That although others may fuck him and suck him and wank him in back rooms from Dublin to Kiev and everywhere in-between, no one but me gets to eat cereal with him in the morning from one of two bowls. And no one but me gets to sleep beside him, so close that our hair entwines and we breathe in each other’s dreams with every shared breath.

I lay back with my head on the pillows, and he crawls up my body until he’s able to tuck himself seamlessly against me. I wrap my arms around him and hold him close, feeling his breath against my throat and his heart thrumming against my chest. His skin is warm and oh so alive. I splay my hand against his shoulder blade, tracing the sharp plane of bone with the pad of my thumb. Above us, the Rococo cherubs on the painted ceiling cavort about with their stubby penises and rosy-cheeked arses. I try to picture the people who must once have lived here in the age of the Tsars, when this was a parlour or a sitting room or a boudoir, instead of a one-room flat. People long-dead and turned to dust in marble crypts or in a pauper’s grave, lost under an endless glittering expanse of Siberian snow.

“Are you ogling those bloody angels again?” I feel him smile.

“They’re not angels, they’re cherubs. And, no, I am not ‘ogling them’ as you so boorishly put it. I’m admiring the artist’s brush strokes.”

He snorts wetly into my neck.

“You’re so full of shit, Malfoy.” 

I twist my head so I can look down into his face, and I am relieved beyond words to see the sombre look has left his eyes.

“Will you sit in my lap and ride me till I’m a gibbering blob of jelly?” he asks, and my cock twitches in my trousers.

“If I do, _then_ will you let me eat?” I reply.

“Bloody hell.” He rises on an elbow and furrows his brow in a way I always find irresistible. “I completely forgot you haven’t eaten. I’m so sorry. Here . . .”

He starts to get up, but I reach for him to pull him back down beside me. Our fingers tangle together.

“The food will keep for another hour or so,” I say. “Unless, of course, with all those after-work Diakas with Longbottom and Higglebee and Nott and O’Malley and who-the-hell-knows-who-else, you forgot to put your parcels in the fridge again.”

“I did _not_ have after-work drinks with Higglebee,” he says in feigned horror. “You know I can barely stand the git nine-to-five, let alone include him in any extracurricular activities.”

I chuckle. It never fails to amuse me when he refers to his job in such mundane terms as “nine-to-five,” when, of course, it’s anything but and always has been. Shortly after we’d got together (or however one might term the forging of our label-defying bond), he’d quit his dull, middle-office job at the Ministry and, together with Longbottom, pitched the idea of an elite hit squad to the International Confederation of Wizards. The rest, of course, is history. Ten nascent dark lords and witches later, he and Longbottom have put together and trained a fine cadre of the best witches and wizards a paltry, public-service salary can buy. Hence, his and Longbottom’s generous restaurant and bar tabs. And the towering fruit baskets at Christmastime. Mustn’t forget the fruit baskets.

I pull him down on to the mattress and roll him on to his back so he’s beneath me and my thigh is between his legs. I’m hard, and he can feel it. He hums in the back of his throat and reaches down to clutch my hips and pull me tight up against him.

“You feel so good,” he says, nuzzling his face in my neck and pressing butterfly kisses against my skin. “God, I’ve _missed_ you!”

“I would have come to Irkutsk, you know,” I say in between the kisses I’m pressing against his throat and collarbone.

He groans, and not entirely from arousal.

“I know,” he says. “I know. And it’s not that I didn’t want you to, either. I did, and you know it. It’s just that it was too dangerous . . .”

I sigh. We’ve had this conversation many times. _Too_ many times.

“I’m hardly a defenceless . . .”

“Draco.” He stops kissing me and places a finger against my lips. “You know that I know that. And you also know that I couldn’t live with myself . . .”

“. . .if anything were to happen to me. Yes, yes, I know.”

“Well, it’s true. I couldn’t. It would be the death of me.”

“And how do you think you’ll feel when you go two, three, four months without seeing me only to learn I’ve choked on my Weetabix over breakfast and fallen face first into my scrambled eggs and you haven’t fucked my arse in farewell? At least, if I visited you in Irkutsk and was offed the next day by Milktoast, or whatever his name is, you’d know that I’d spent my last night on this earth with your cock buried up to my appendix and a blissful smile on my lips. As it stands, chances are my last night with breath in my lungs will be spent getting pissed on La Gitana with my mother or playing chess with Blaise - and losing spectacularly, I might add.”

“Malfoy?”

“What?” I’m on a roll.

“Shut up and ride my dick.”

I rise to my knees and sit back on my heels, fumbling with my belt.

“You’re such a fucking romantic, Potter.”

He laughs, and his belt and trousers fall open under his nimble fingers. I watch, the saliva pooling in my mouth, as he arches his back and lifts his hips off the mattress, pushing his trousers and pants down and then off. I redouble my efforts with my own, and at last they’re off and kicked into a corner.

He pushes himself up and reclines back against the pillows, all the while stroking his gorgeous prick languorously.

“The lube’s in the bathroom on the shelf, above the toilet,” he says.

I make my way through the rectangles of light falling through the tall windows, and I feel his eyes on me every step of the way.

“Are you going to take a piss while you’re in there?” he calls.

“I was thinking about it,” I call back.

“Good. Leave the door open so I can watch.”

I laugh and flick on the light so he’ll have a clearer view. It’s slow going at first because I’m more than a little aroused, but after a minute milking the shaft and thinking really hard about it, a meagre flow trickles out.

“Is that the best you can do, Malfoy?” he calls. I glance through the open door at him and notice he’s wanking in earnest now, his knees splayed wantonly to give me an unobstructed view of the full, glorious length of him. From shiny wet tip to his perfect round balls.

“ _You_ try pissing through an erection you’ve had for three hours, and see what kind of stream you produce,” I call back.

He laughs. “No, thanks though.”

After another laborious minute, I finally feel like my bladder’s as empty as it’s going to get. I dry my penis with a handful of tissue, flush the toilet, and reach for the lube.

“Walk slowly enough, and I’ll come just watching you,” he says as I cross the room again. “God help me, you’re gorgeous,” he moans and reaches a hand up, twining his fingers through mine. “Come here.”

I straddle his lap, and he slides reverent hands up and down my sides.

“Like the new love handles?”

“What? These puny things?” He pinches a half-inch of flesh on either side of my waist. “You call these love handles? They’re more like love _tabs _. Now, Higglebee on the other hand . . .”__

“Oh, ugh, Potter. Stop. I thought you said you didn’t engage in ‘extracurricular activities’ with Higglebee.”

It’s his turn to look horrified.

“That is _not_ what I meant! All I was saying is, look at the size of him! I have never, voluntarily at least, seen that man without a shirt on.”

I chuckle, raising myself up on to my knees so that I can reach around and grab his cock. He lets out a groan as my fingers tighten around him and unsheathe his glans from the foreskin, teasingly squeezing the slick nerve-rich skin.

“Shush,” I murmur. “No more shop talk.”

“As if,” he laughs.

“Shush . . .”

I lean forward to lick at his mouth, his tongue, his chin, and everywhere else I can reach. I’m suddenly ravenous. I want a part of him in my every orifice, fucking and sucking and lapping up all the liquids I can squeeze out of my body. He reaches around me to spread the cheeks of my arse.

“Let me eat you out,” he groans. “Let me get you ready for me. I need to _taste_ you.”

He nuzzles my mouth with his nose, inhaling deeply before moving to the place where my shoulder meets my neck, and then eventually he’s nuzzling under my arm. I lift it, holding my elbow behind my head with my other hand, and he caresses the soft hair there with his tongue. Lapping and moaning, his chin, shiny with saliva, glistens in the soft light.

I shake my head. “I don’t want to be ready,” I tell him. “I want you to take me like this and feel just how small and tight you’ve left me after all this time alone.”

He whimpers, not only from the lust I know he feels at the thought of ploughing into me unstretched, but from the realisation of what it is I’ve just told him. He knows now. He knows there’s been no one else. And there hasn’t been for a long, long time.

“No one here, either?” he whispers, running his thumb over my lips.

“No one there, either,” I say.

He pats the sheets, hunting for the lube, and I hand it to him. He practically tears the cap off with his teeth. He’s frantic now, and I can tell.

“Jesus, Draco,” he grinds out. “Why didn’t you fucking say something?”

Despite the strangling grip of my need for him, I manage to laugh out loud.

“Like when? During one of our rare firecalls? I can just see it now: _Oh, hello Harry_ ,” I say chirpily. “ _How are you? How’s the dark lord extermination business going? Oh, by the way, I’ve decided I can’t let anyone but you touch me, because when they do it feels like having acid poured on my vivisected heart._ ”

He freezes, and for a fleeting second I have a crazy thought: He’s going to strike me! The look on his face is one I haven’t seen in years; not since we were at Hogwarts. It’s not anger or rage or disgust (though I saw those, too, plenty of times back then). No, it’s shock. Pure, unadulterated shock. And I realise why it is that I thought he might strike me - it’s the same look I saw on his face just before he hit me with the _Sectumsempra_.

“Harry?”

I can hear the quaver in my voice.

“Huh?” he looks up at me, dazed.

“Hello. Earth sending an owl to one, Harry Potter.”

He’s swallowing convulsively.

“Oh, God,” he gasps. “Oh, God.”

He’s clutching my hips in a death grip, but it is no longer desire that I feel in his hands. It’s the grasp of a drowning man who’s been thrown a lifeline in a stormy sea, but is nonetheless feeling it slip inextricably through his fingers, knowing it’s his only chance and knowing it won’t be enough. He utters a groan that sounds as though it was ripped from the depths of his soul. It renders me completely and utterly speechless.

“Oh, God. Draco.”

And though I still may not be able to speak, I can definitely act. I climb off his lap and pull him into arms, dragging him down on to the bed with me, clutching his face to my neck and carding my hands through his hair. He’s shaking violently now.

“Hush, hush,” I say over and over, kissing his hair. “Hush now. It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Without thinking, I begin rocking him gently as though he were a baby in my arms while all the time he’s struggling just to breathe. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying in vain to steady my own stuttering pulse so that he won’t feel it. I find myself wishing he _would_ strike me, bust my lip open, hit me, punch me, strangle me. Anything! Anything but this. Because I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t know how to make it better.

“Harry,” I say at last. “Harry. You have to tell me.”

The sob, when it finally comes, breaks me. I open my eyes, and without having to blink, the tears roll down my temples and into my ears. It tickles, but I can’t let go of him to dry them. There is something awful. I can feel it. Something unspeakable, and it’s something I knew would find me – find _us_ – before all was said and done. It’s just that I had hoped – hoped so _fervently_ – that I could somehow keep it at bay.

“I’m going to die, Draco.”

His whisper is all but inaudible, but his words tear through me, cleave a path through flesh and muscle and bone and viscera.

“No,” I say. “No, you’re not.”

He clutches me closer, burying his face, wet with tears, deep into the space between my neck and shoulder.

“I’m not going to let you,” I say, and for an instant I am completely convinced by the fervour of my own words. After all, how is it possible that I could actually save him? It simply and flatly just isn’t. No one loved in the way that I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, love him, Harry James Potter, could possibly die. It has never happened in the history of the world, and it will not happen now. I am convinced. The acres and acres of bones cradled in six feet of dirt, the ashes released into an ocean of wind. In millennia of human existence, no one who has ever been loved like I love him has ever died. Ever.

“It’s not . . .” He’s struggling for breath between words. “It’s not that I’m afraid. It’s just . . .” He groans and wrenches himself out of my arms, his fingers clawing at his own chest as though he’s trying to get at his heart, trying to tear it out and put himself out of his misery.

“It’s just that _I. Can’t. Bear. It._ ” He grinds out each word in a fury, in a rage that only Harry Potter has ever been capable of. His chest heaves with each breath, but then, just as quickly as it came, the violence subsides. He’s shaking and weeping, his hand over his eyes and his fringe sticking sweatily to his brow.

“I can’t bear it,” he whimpers. “I can’t bear it. The thought . . .” He swallows once, twice, a third time. “The thought of leaving you behind.”

I’m suddenly beyond exhausted, and I let my head fall until it rests on top of his. He’s fighting to catch his breath, groping for the frayed threads of his composure.

“How is it,” he whispers, “that you can make me so strong and so weak all at the same time - and just by being . . . by being you?”

It’s a rhetorical question, and I give no answer save to press a kiss against the deeply furrowed flesh between his dark brows.

“It’s been like this always,” he sighs. “Always. Since the day I first saw you.”

I’m not convinced that’s actually true, but I certainly know better than to argue.

He drops his hand away from his eyes and pulls away so that he can look into my face, seizing my gaze in an all-but-physical grip.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

I frown, suddenly confused. “Tell you what’s not true?”

“What you said,” he adds unhelpfully.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” I say. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.” I take a deep tremulous breath. “You have to understand that this . . . conversation . . . has pretty much blasted my brain to a burnt ember.”

He sighs. “What you said earlier. About not wanting anyone but me to touch you ever again. Tell me it’s not true. That you were just kidding. That you didn’t _mean_ it.”

Hazily, I realise that it was that – that sincere and momentous, but flippantly stated, remark – which started all this, and I am consumed by remorse. Even so. Even so, I know that I cannot lie to him. That’s been the Cardinal Rule between us since day-one. No lies, no subterfuge, no prevarications.

“I can’t say that, Harry,” I whisper. “I can’t lie to you, and you know it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it hurts so much to hear it. You know I never want to hurt you for no reason. But there is a reason for me telling you what I did. You need to know. Ironically, perhaps now more than ever. But I’m sorry - beyond my ability to make words express - that I said it so unthinkingly. I suppose . . .” I pause and try to swallow around the lump that is rapidly expanding in my throat. “I suppose I just didn’t know how much it would mean to you.”

He pulls away from me and struggles to rise to his knees, his hands clenched into fists in the sheets. I stare at the taut bow of his spine.

“Harry . . .” I whisper. I am utterly bereaved.

After several minutes, he sits back on his heels. I can only see his profile, but I can tell that he’s staring unblinkingly, and probably unseeingly, at the wall before him. Several more minutes pass. At last, he leverages himself onto his feet. But before he can stand straight, he staggers and has to catch himself on the window casement. I am suddenly reminded of the sweat-stained dancers we’d watched earlier - a thousand years ago - the Prince as he’d finally faltered before the onslaught of the Rat King. But that had been a ballet – a dance. Eloquent, choreographed, rehearsed. So unlike Harry, standing hunched and naked in the soft orange light, shadowed rivulets of rain, reflected off the window panes, marring the smooth plane of his chest, the pale curve of his thighs. . . .

He turns his face to me at last, and his gaze is soft and sad.

“I need to go for a walk,” he says.

I nod.

“I won’t be gone long,” he continues. “I promise.”

I just nod again in response.

“There’s cheese and pâté in the fridge, and some caviar, too, if you want. And there’s bread and fruit on the counter.”

I almost laugh. It’s unlikely I’ll ever eat again, let alone tonight. I just nod once more.

I must look as broken as I feel because after he dresses, Harry drops to his knees at the edge of the mattress.

“I love you,” he says, cupping my cheek in his gloved palm. “I love you. _Ya lublu tebya_. I love you, Draco. _Mily. Miliy moy_.”

“I know,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage.

He kisses my forehead like a mother kisses her child before whispering Nox and closing the bedroom door. He stands, and I gaze up at him. He’s backlit with the windows behind him, and I can see nothing but shadow and the blank reflection off the lenses of his glasses. He backs away from me slowly, never turning around, until he reaches out and finds the doorknob under his hand.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says. And then he is gone.

At some point I stop weeping into my hands.

I look up, scarcely able to see through my puffy eyelids. Outside, the rain has turned to snow. Huge white flakes drift into the alley below, and I hope that he’s wearing a scarf. It’s grown cold in the flat, and I’m shivering, my skin goose-pimpled and blue-tinged, and my penis shrunk to cherub-size. I clamber gracelessly to my feet, aching and sore as though I’ve been playing Quidditch for hours instead of kneeling on a mattress, crying tears so hot I feared that when I pulled my hands away at last that I would see them drenched in blood instead of snot and tears.

I walk listlessly to the bathroom and turn on the tap in the shower, watching the mirror steam over and obscure my reflection. The water is hot - too hot. I let it scald me pink, taking comfort in the pain, while my mind gropes like the hand of a blind man for something – _anything_ – to hold on to. The best I can come up with is time. It will be weeks, if not months, before they’ll be ready to confront Mefodiy. There is still time. Time to weaken him through smaller covert incursions. That’s Longbottom’s speciality, after all, and I am sure he has his wife working for him, researching all the angles and possibilities, just as Harry has me bringing all my considerable scholarship in the Dark Arts and their defences to bear. I make a mental note to Floo-call Hermione as soon as I get home to find out if Longbottom’s told her anything that Harry hasn’t told me.

I hear the door of the flat open and close and then his voice calling my name. I turn off the tap and reach for a towel.

“Just a minute!” I call. I have no intention of letting him see my swollen red-rimmed eyes. “Just give me a bit of privacy.”

“All right,” he calls, and I hear the fridge open. “You didn’t eat anything.”

I decide to let the remark go without a response and instead open the bathroom door a crack.

“ _Accio_ wand,” I say, holding out my hand. He’s in the open kitchen with his back to me out of respect. I notice the dusting of snow across his shoulders. Wand in hand, I close the door again and cast a few Glamours at my face. Merlin knows, he’ll probably see right through them – after all, seeing past Glamours was probably an entry-level course at the dark-lord-combat academy – but I do it anyway. At last, I dress in the set of pyjamas I always stash at his flats, open the door, and pad quietly into the kitchen.

He’s taken off his coat, but his face is still pink and cold, and slightly damp. His skin feels so good against my parched lips that I leave them there for a long moment while he runs his hands over my back.

“Here,” he says, leaning back slightly in the circle of my arms. “Eat.”

I have no energy left to protest, and so I open my mouth and let him feed me. He’s sliced an apple and a wedge of cheese. He feeds me a bite and then takes one himself, and we repeat the sequence until we’ve consumed two apples, the wedge of cheese and two hunks of chewy white bread.

“Enough?” he asks, and I nod.

“I could use some water, though.” I wince at the croak in my voice.

He chooses not to comment and instead gets me a bottle of San Faustino from the fridge. I twist off the top and proceed to drink it in nearly a single swallow.

“I know this may sound kind of strange,” he says while I’m drinking. I hear the shy note in his voice and know I would be amused and titillated under different circumstances.

“What?” I gasp breathlessly and wipe my arm across my mouth.

He smiles a vaguely puckish smile. “Still thirsty? Want another bottle?”

“No, I’m all right,” I say. _Having my heart broken is thirsty work_ , the snarky part of my brain considers adding, but of course I quash it before it comes anywhere near my tongue. Instead, I ask him again what ‘strange request’ he wishes to make of me.

“I want you to make love to me,” he says. “Do you think you can? After all this, I mean?” He spreads his upturned hands in a gesture meant to encompass the last three hours and, perhaps, the last three months as well.

To my amazement, I feel my cock twitch beneath the heavy silk of my pyjamas. He sees it, and the most brilliant, the most achingly _beautiful_ , smile spreads across his face, touching his eyes with joy and gratitude and igniting them like luminous green candles. Fleetingly, I’m reminded of the lamps in the Slytherin common room and the dozens – no, _hundreds_ – of times I must have sat gazing at them thinking of exactly this. Harry’s eyes alive with love and desire for me, and me alone. I take his hand and lead him out of the kitchen.

We undress each other unhurriedly. I have the oddest sensation of shyness as I smooth my hands over his collarbones and down his arms, as though I might bollocks this up somehow. I lean in and kiss him, opening his mouth with my lips and then my tongue. He wraps his arms around me and cups the back of my head, holding me steady against this kiss. I murmur endearments into his mouth, feeling him swell and harden.

At last we sink down onto the mattress. I want to rim him, but I’m afraid to let go of him. I don’t at all like the idea of me between his legs, and his head with all its thoughts sitting up there alone on the pillows. Still holding his hand, I lie back and make myself comfortable.

“Come here, and impale that handsome arse of yours on my tongue,” I say.

He grins and straddles my face, a thigh on either side of my head, facing my feet. I reach up and spread his cheeks, inhaling the intoxicating scent of him, and wait until I see that pretty little nub of puckered flesh spasm and convulse. When it does, I kiss it, laving it with my tongue and sucking it gently between my lips. He groans, and suddenly I feel his warm mouth envelop my cock, catching the foreskin between his lips and sliding it down to unsheathe the glans in one wet glide. It feels so unbelievably good that the tears well in my eyes. Part of me is on the verge of weeping again, but I force it back, concentrating instead on the feel and taste of Harry under my tongue. He shifts his position slightly to give me better access, and I press my thumbs against the rim of his anus, spreading it gently and circling it with the very tip of my tongue. He whimpers pleadingly around my cock, and I plunge my tongue wetly into the bright pink ring of achingly soft flesh.

He’s pleasuring me in earnest, pulling back to focus solely on the head of my cock, sucking and caressing the sensitive glans and jabbing the tip of his tongue into my slit just as he knows I like it . . . until it’s almost too much. I release his arse and grope for the lube, praying it’s still where we’d left it earlier. It is, and I seize it, squeezing a couple of tablespoons into my palm and coating my fingers.

“Harry?” I say. It’s not customary for me to warn him when I’m about to start fucking him with something, be it my fingers or a dildo or my cock. But this night is anything but customary.

“Mmmmm?” he hums as he slides his mouth off my prick.

“I’m going to put a finger in you. Is that okay?”

He’s nuzzling in my pubic hair, and I feel him chuckle.

“That’s the silliest question I’ve ever heard,” he says. “And I’ve heard _a lot_ of silly questions in my time.” He kisses my navel tenderly. “The answer is ‘yes. Yes, please.’”

I smile and kiss his beautifully taut balls. 

He squirms. “Now _that_ , on the other hand. _That_ tickles like a bastard.”

“Baby,” I say affectionately. “Put that mouth of yours back to work.”

He does, and I reach up to rest a fingertip against his rosy pucker, gently pressing in and feeling it tighten and then release, surrendering to my tender intrusion. He moans around my cock as I press deeper, wriggling his arse prettily in encouragement. When my finger can go no further, I begin to slide it out and then in again, slowly but deliberately stretching him. This is one of my favourite things, and has been since that time I first fisted him in my dungeon. The truth – the honest-fucking-truth – is that I love Harry’s hole like nothing else in this world. Not that I don’t love his luscious prick or that heartbreaking mouth of his, because I do. But there is nothing, and I mean _nothing_ , that drives me out of my head like the sight of my body disappearing into his.

“Harry!”

“What now, love? If you’re about to ask permission to put in another finger or three, consider this a clear expression of my prior consent.”

I laugh breathlessly.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” I gasp. “I was going to tell you that if you keep sucking me like that, I’m going to come in your mouth and leave your lovely arse bereft.”

He murmurs his understanding against my belly, pressing sweet open-mouthed kisses everywhere he can reach.

“All right,” he says. “I’ll try to keep my mouth off you, but if I do, you have to hurry. I want you inside me, Draco.”

In answer, I withdraw my finger from his anus and prepare to insert two together. He continues to kiss me as I slide them in and press them against either side of his prostate, scissoring them open and sliding them deeper until that most sensitive of bumps is nestled in the snug “V” of my fingers. He humps his bum against my hand, milking the spasms in his rectum in rapid succession, and his hole swallows my fingers even deeper. I lift my head from the pillow and slip my tongue in, tracing the inside of his rim with the tip. He moans, and his hips buck involuntarily, his chest smacking sweatily against my belly. He’s ready for me. I slap his arse playfully to let him know it’s time to turn around.

“How do you want me?” he asks, flushed and breathless.

“On your back. Facing me,” I answer, and I can tell from the look in his eyes when he nods his understanding that he’s grateful and relieved.

He lies back against the pillows and pulls his knees to his chest while I brace my thighs against his hips. He’s beautiful and pliant. I watch while I stroke the lube onto my cock as he raises his arms and stretches them behind his head. His body is a study in chiaroscuro with his lean muscles and the shadows cupped in the hollows behind his collar bones. Perfection in living, breathing, pulsing, throbbing, twitching, sighing, sweating flesh. I am overcome and have to squeeze my eyes shut as I rub the head of my penis along the crack of his arse until it sinks, almost imperceptibly, into his body’s slick heat.

“Draco,” he whispers as I sink slowly deeper. “Look at me. Please.”

I force my eyes open, knowing damn well he can see the tears in them.

“I love you,” he says simply, and there is no artifice, no teasing, no demand, no desire for reciprocation in his voice.

“Harry.”

He rests his head back against the pillows and takes hold of his cock, stroking it in time with my thrusts. We move together in our pleasure as though we’re dancing. Not just grinding and bouncing around in a noisy club, but _really_ dancing. I think of the trust it must require to permit someone to lift you above their head and hold your weight, literally, in the palm of their hand. The countless hours of trust that must lie behind the simplest _pas de deux_ . . .

He writhes and cries out beneath me, and I feel that I’ve finally hit the right angle and am sweeping against his prostate with every thrust. I grip his hips firmly in my hands, lifting them higher so that they rest on the tops of my thighs. I thrust up and then in, up and then in, over and over. His eyes drift shut, and I know that he trusts me completely. Trusts me to bring him to the shattering orgasm that he so desperately needs. I concentrate every fibre of thought on him, on reading his body’s subtlest cues and responding in just the right way. He’s whimpering, milking his engorged prick mercilessly, and I fuck him as brutally and tenderly as I can.

His orgasm, when it hits, is remorseless. It wracks him completely, wringing from him one strangled cry after another. The look in his eyes – when they fly open and meet mine – is pleading, helpless. The tears I’ve held at bay this whole time fall unimpeded as I slam into him, my own climax imminent.

“Draco,” he whispers, his voice breathless and carefree. “Draco.”

I come violently and almost painfully, my cock buried to the root in his body, and still I know it’s not enough. That it will never be enough, and the realisation all but breaks me. I’m shuddering and sobbing, and he’s pulling me into his arms, smoothing my hair and kissing my face.

“Hush,” he soothes. “Hush. It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re all right . . .”

But I’m not, and we both know it.

“I love you,” I choke. 

_I can’t live without you_.

I want to say it but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those words must never – _never_ – cross my lips. It’s a terrifying realisation, after all these years, to discover there’s something I cannot confess to him.

He cradles me in his arms, rocking me gently until my breathing steadies and my softening penis slips out of him wetly. I’m so utterly exhausted, and I wonder for a fleeting second if it’s possible to actually perish from fatigue.

I’m vaguely aware of him rolling me on to my back and cleaning me gently with a soft, warmly wet cloth. I try to murmur my thanks, but I can’t be sure that a sound actually emerges. At last, he lies down beside me and pulls the duvet over the both of us. 

“Sleep well,” he whispers, spooning me against his chest.

His words, and the silence of the descending snow, are all I remember before surrendering myself in relief to oblivion.


	2. Chapter 2

I wake to the sound of voices speaking Russian at _Sonorus_ levels, and I’m momentarily disoriented. Watery light suffuses the flat, and the space beside me is empty and cold. I sit up and comb my fingers through my hair. There’s a note on Harry’s pillow. _Good morning. There’s coffee above the sink. I’m sorry I’m not there. Something’s come up, and Neville convened an impromptu meeting of the usual suspects. I shouldn’t be gone long. At least, I hope I won’t be. Make yourself at home. I’ll see you soon. Yours, Harry._

I smile wanly, picturing him in some café surrounded by his beloved assortment of maniacal co-workers. I’m willing to bet he didn’t shower or shave before he’d Apparated, and I can see him in my mind’s eye: scruffy and sleepy-eyed, his hair a rumpled cow-licked mess. Hopefully, he’d at least brushed his teeth and wasn’t inflicting his morning cock breath on his cohorts. Then again, Russian coffee being what it is (and given the oceanic quantities the squad consumes daily), the only thing they’d be apt to notice is the scent of espresso and cardamom.

I contemplate the squad as I shower and dress, holding up each of their faces to scrutiny. Some of them I’ve known for ages – Longbottom, Krum, Lovegood and Nott (the bastard). But most of them I met after they’d been recruited. I have to admit, it’s hard sometimes not to romanticise their lives. But then again, I know too many gory details to entertain for long the gilded imaginings that fill the newspapers after every successful mission. Yes, sometimes it can be exhilarating. But the public doesn’t see the countless, mind-numbing hours of research, reconnaissance, and tedious stake-outs involved. Harry’s life in Irkutsk is a perfect example. From what I’ve gathered, the squad spends twenty-four hours a day tracking a half-dozen or so low-level Mefodiy minions, trying to discern meaningful patterns in their movements and activities. They lease a flat across from the warehouse where much of this activity seems to take place, which allows them close surveillance. They’ve all been rotating their time between St. Petersburg and Siberia, trying to master the complex _Imperturbables_ and anti-surveillance wards. All of them, that is, except Harry – and judging from Hermione’s veiled comments, Longbottom, too. True to form, Harry had shouldered the lion’s share of the responsibility, refusing to leave the premises unwatched – even for a second. So he’d stayed in Irkutsk. And stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed, never returning to St. Petersburg – and by extension, me.

I sigh and make myself a cup of coffee. No use wringing my hands over the past three months. It’s water under the bridge. I go back over to the mattress and sit on the floor, reading Harry’s note again. _Something’s come up_. A typical off-handed and cryptic statement. When is “something” _not_ coming up? I hold my mug in both hands, warming my fingers and breathing in the fragrant steam. Sometimes I find out what that “something” is, and sometimes I don’t. The fact that he keeps secrets from me relating to his work doesn’t bother me. Well, at least it didn’t . . . until yesterday.

Even in the morning light, and with an orgasm-induced sound night’s sleep behind me, the reference he’d made to dying continues to bother me. While it’s true that we’ve discussed the possibility on prior occasions, and even had a couple of close calls, he has never before sounded so utterly convinced. It was that note of confidence with its hint of resignation that had so shattered me. He knows something. That much is as clear as day. But what? And why won’t he tell me, when I’m the one working to comprehend Mefodiy’s particularly noxious combination of traditional European Dark Arts and their cruel and arcane Siberian counterparts? After all, this isn’t like his previous missions in which he never asked me to get involved. He’d come to me early on with this one, after spending only a month in St. Petersburg. It had been difficult for him – I know that. He is loath to involve me in his job on any level - although how he thinks refusing to let me help in the few areas I might be able to constitutes “protecting” me, I don’t know. Anyhow. We’ve been over that ground a thousand times. But that history makes the present situation stand out all the more starkly. I’ve been working night and day, placing on hold my own scholarship and endangering my position with the International Academy. Not that that matters, but the fact remains: I have been driving myself past the point of exhaustion and reason and calling down all manner of favours (no matter how dubitable or degenerate the source). And it’s not even as though I’ve made no headway. There have been breakthroughs, though nothing that would permit a pre-emptive strike. Not yet, at least . . . .

“Hey there.”

I turn from the windows, startled. He’s standing by the door, stamping his boots. There is snow in his hair, and I’m reminded of the Manor’s ravens, stoic and stern in the midst of a driving blizzard.

“Hi,” I say. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I know. I could hear you thinking all the way down in the foyer.” He gives me a tentative smile as he unwinds his scarf and unbuttons his coat. “How are you this morning?”

I set my mug on the floor and arch my back in a spine-cracking stretch, watching his eyes travel the contours of my body. After a minute, I stand and pad over to him, my bare feet leaving little patches of steamed warmth on the wood floor. He throws his coat on the kitchen counter.

“I’m as well as can be expected,” I say. “How about you?”

“About the same.” His eyes drift shut as he kisses me. His mouth is cool and wet.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, releasing me and bending over to unlace his boots.

“Since when did you become so attentive to my dietary requirements?” I enquire, faintly teasing.

He straightens and catches me back in his arms, his face flushed from the cold and from pulling off his boots.

“Can’t have you wasting away under my watch,” he answers. “Besides, I have a selfish reason for asking. They were out of _pirozhki_ at the café Neville chose, and I’m starving. How about we have brunch somewhere and then go for a walk? It snowed all night, and it’s gorgeous out there. You’ll love it.”

I stand back so that I can see his face, searching with a quick sweep of my eyes for anything out of the ordinary. He looks tired but otherwise all right.

“Just give me a minute to change into something a bit warmer,” I say, although I notice that he’s pulling off his wool socks; I reckon he’s not in all _that_ big of a hurry.

“You can borrow anything of mine you want,” he calls as I disappear into the magically-enhanced depths of his closet. “As you can imagine, I’ve compiled quite the sub-zero wardrobe after all that time in the Faroe Islands and Reykjavík and Toronto and Helsinki and now bleeding _Siberia_. You’d think one of these dark lords could set up shop in Fiji or, at the very least, one of the Maltese Islands. I’m starting to think there’s a certain temperature requirement for the nurturing of a depraved conscience.”

I wander back out of his closet wearing an enormous wolf-fur _ushanka_.

“I’ll have you know, my father spent much of his youth at my great-grandfather’s Sri Lankan estate,” I say.

He’s standing at the sink with his back to me, drinking a glass of water.

“That may be,” he says. “But what about that quote-unquote ‘cottage’ in the Hebrides he seemed to like so much? That provided the requisite arse-freezing temperatures, I’m sure . . . .” He sets his glass on the counter, turning with a sinuous stretch and spies me sitting on the mattress, leaning back on my elbows. I watch as his expression catches up with the sight of me in his ridiculous hat.

“Oh Merlin!” he sputters, almost spitting water down the front of his jumper before he clamps a hand over his mouth. “I think you’ve found yourself a new look, Malfoy.”

He’s doubled over laughing, and I’m flooded with relief. I smirk at him as I stand and make my way to the bathroom to check out the _ushanka_ in the mirror.

“The Hebrides with their coastal climate are often warmer than the mainland,” I call back to him.

He comes into the bathroom and stands behind me with his arms around my waist and his chin resting on my shoulder. It’s an oddly domestic moment for us, and I watch his face. It’s almost completely eclipsed behind the hat, and he blows light puffs of breath against my neck in an effort to keep the fur from tickling his nose. We stand for a minute or two, smiling rather goofily at our reflection, but eventually the hat prevails, and he releases me before sneezing into a towel.

My hair is longer than it’s ever been. For some reason I can’t explain, I’d decided not to cut it while he was in Irkutsk. I pull it free of the elastic I sometimes use to keep it out of my face and shake it loose. Another month, and it’ll be past my shoulders.

“I think your hat looks good on me,” I say, turning my face from side to side.

He stops sneezing and turns his watery gaze back to my reflection, blowing his nose into a handful of toilet paper. He looks at me, seeming to consider my statement, before resting paternal hands on my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice full of feigned sobriety and concern. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go outside in that. Every werewolf within a hundred miles of St. Petersburg will be whining like a weaned puppy and trying to hump your leg.”

I shoot him a look of unbridled disgust and drag the hat off my head, making my hair drift with static as though I’m some kind of strange scaleless merperson.

“Shut it, Potter,” I say. “You’re just jealous because your hat looks better on me.”

“How do you know?” he asks. “You’ve never seen me in it. Here, give it to me.”

I hand him the _ushanka_ and watch as he makes quite the show of settling it on his head, tilting it forward and then tilting it back and then tilting it forward once again. At last, he pulls his hands away and turns to face me.

And, bloody hell, he’s right.

“You simply have no right looking so fucking hot in that fifty pound badger you call a hat,” I say.

“Suits my colouring more than yours,” he replies. “The grey makes you look washed out. What we need to find you is a marten _ushanka_.”

“But no ferret,” I warn.

“Although, you _would_ look good in white with those pink cheeks you get in the cold. Maybe snowshoe hare, then?”

“We’ll see,” I say, my tone noncommittal. “I have a hard time picturing myself showing up at Ministry functions wearing a hat the size of a small country.”

“Not if you also showed up wearing a set of the custom-tailored fur-trimmed robes they sell in the Wizarding district here. The night would be over before people remembered to pick their jaws off the floor and stuff their tongues back in their mouths.”

I wet my hand under the tap and try coaxing my hair to lie flat again. “Not everyone is as infatuated with my body as you are, Potter.”

“Oh, really?” he replies, arching his eyebrow and managing to make himself look even more fuckable in that fucking hat. “I seriously doubt I’m the only person creaming my trousers when you walk in a room.”

“It’s the hair,” I say, “although not that you’d know it at the moment.” I give up and stick my whole head under the tap in the bath. “There isn’t a lot of Scandinavian blood in the British Wizarding population.”

He hands me a towel.

“While your Viking-blond tresses are indeed beyond compare,” he says, kissing my neck as I wring the excess water from my hair, “I was really only thinking of your arse.”

I grin. “Potter, are you going to let me suck your cock while you wear that ridiculous hat?”

He frowns. “I thought we agreed that this hat – far from being ‘ridiculous’ – conveys a certain, how shall I say it? _Air of manly fortitude_.”

“Really?” I take his hands in mine and lead him out of the bathroom toward the waiting mattress with its tangle of expensive sheets. “We agreed on that?” I tilt my head. “Hhhmm, I’m having difficulty recollecting that particular conversation . . . .”

He catches my chin in his fingers and kisses me possessively, thrusting his tongue between my teeth and claiming my mouth. I feel my groin tighten. It’s a feeling similar to the sensation of plunging a frost-bitten hand into a vat of warm water.

“Fuck,” I gasp, tearing my mouth from his. “Is there some kind of residual animal musk in that thing?”

“Not that I know of,” he says. “I think it’s just me.” He leans forward and kisses me again with the same covetous ferocity, leaving me shaking and moaning into his mouth. “I think,” he purrs, “it’s just that you want me, Malfoy.”

“I do,” I whisper. “So help me, I do.”

Suddenly, I can tell we’re not going to make it the additional half-dozen steps to the mattress.

I sink to my knees, my mouth watering for the taste of him, and open his belt and trousers. He reaches down and tugs his cock free, pulling the foreskin back from the glans. His fingers move down to circle the base, holding himself steady for me. My eyes never leave the pulsing slit, seeping wet and bubbling slightly, as I fumble with my own trousers.

“Here,” he says huskily. “I’ll hold it while you suck. I want your hands free.”

I glance up at his face, my chest heaving with the strain of my lust, waiting for further instruction.

“I want to watch you fuck your hands while you suck me off,” he says. “Both of them.” He gazes down at my lap and swallows hard. “Show me,” he whispers.

I take my prick in one hand and squeeze my thumb and index finger around the base of the shaft, just as he’s doing, except I then reach down to cup as much of my scrotum as I can with the remaining fingers, squeezing hard so that the soft skin bulges shinily between my knuckles.

“Oh shit,” he groans and starts stroking himself, caressing the steady seep of wet over the length of his shaft. “Shit. Draco.”

I disengage his fingers from his prick and replace his hand with mine. He starts to protest, but I shush him. I slick my palm in his juices, letting him thrust into the circle of my fingers for a minute before releasing him and wrapping my now-wet fingers around the swollen head of my cock. He stares hungrily as I began to thrust languidly, rolling my hips in lazy circles.

I look up through my lashes, my eyes heavy-lidded and fuck-me dark.

“Like this?” I ask.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he groans. “Just like that. Don’t you dare even _think_ of stopping.”

“May I suck your cock now?” My mouth is streaming, and I think I may die if I can’t feel that fat vein throbbing against my tongue.

“You may,” he says tenderly, caressing my cheek with his free hand. I don’t even have the capacity of thought to thank him for his generosity because my mouth is already closing around twitching, blood-hot flesh, and I can feel my eyes roll back in my head. His hand quickly moves from my cheek to the back of my neck, and I brace myself mentally, waiting for him to force himself past my gag reflex and hold my head steady so he can fuck my mouth. He wraps his fist in my hair and gives a warning tug before literally slamming his cock down my throat.

To say that sucking Harry’s dick is my profession would not be an overstatement. I’m an elite athlete in training, taking my capacity to handle each additional fraction of an inch with the utmost seriousness. I swallow in rapid succession in the back of my throat, squeezing the head of his cock each time. He groans, unconsciously clutching his fist in my hair and making my eyes water. The musky scent of his damp crotch almost makes me come, and I have to loosen my grip on my dick. He smells rich and full, like aged oak-cask sherry, and perhaps it’s only my imagination, but I also detect the faint but unmistakable scent of snow . . .

His cock jerks hard, and suddenly he’s backing off, panting. He pulls all but the very tip from my mouth, and his shaft is slimy with the thick, mucus-laden spit from the back of my throat.

“Let me watch,” he gasps. “For a minute, until I calm down again.”

I release him from my mouth and sit back on my heels. My eyes are watering from having my gag reflex breached, and I let go of my cock to draw my sleeve across my face. I’m sure that he knows why there are tears in my eyes, but I feel momentarily and unaccountably afraid that he thinks I’m crying.

“I’m not . . .” I stammer. “I mean, it’s not . . .”

He looks at me questioningly. I never fumble for words, and I know that if we weren’t in the middle of getting each other off that he’d be concerned or, at the very least, curious. Instead, he merely shakes his head – in acknowledgment? apology? – and I take my cock in hand again.

I stroke myself in time with the upward thrusting of my hips, while he watches, utterly mesmerised. The intensity of his gaze never relents, never falters. This is how it is with us. The desire never waning, never slackening. It is the constant backdrop to our lives, separate though they often are. The flickering flame that lights and warms and _drives_ us from our beds in the grey light of dawn, flogging us through our days, until we find ourselves together once again. And then it only intensifies, burning hot and bright, until we are at last consumed and can finally _sleep_. Sweat-soaked and tangled in the sheets. In each other’s arms.

He reaches for me, and I go to him, my throat eager and my mouth watering for the taste of him again. I suckle and kiss the place where his shaft rises from his clutched ball sac, making it pull up even tighter against his body. His prick jerks as I slowly trace the flat of my tongue up his length, and he groans loudly as my lips close over the tip of him, forming a tight seal. His hands are wrapped in my hair again, and he slides himself in and out of my mouth in long smooth strokes, while I continue to fuck my hands. His skin beneath my lips is like wet silk.

When I feel him getting close again, I tighten my grip on my cock. I love to orgasm moments after he does, letting the taste of his come and the feel of his ragged, plunging thrusts push me over the edge. He shoves past my gag reflex again, but I know he’ll pull out into my mouth when he starts to spurt. He knows how I love the taste of him, how I hate to lose even a drop down the back of my throat. He’s fucking my mouth now in the same way he fucks my arse when he’s on the brink. His hunger is boundless, savage in the way it seizes him and wrings the extremity of sensation from his body. He’s so close to coming. I can feel the veins of his cock throb, and the sharp scent of arousal rising from his skin is overpowering. He’s literally pulsing with his own trapped essence.

The imminence of his orgasm must have taken him by surprise, because he suddenly yanks himself free from my throat so hard and so fast that he leaves my mouth altogether. I have to release my own cock to grab his as he starts to spurt in hard, hot bursts. I miss the first gush before I can get him in my mouth again and suck and swallow around him. He cries my name, and suddenly I’m coming, though my hands have left my cock and are clutching his hips, holding him steady as I suckle and milk the spurts from his body. He must feel me groan because he pulls out of my mouth and drops to his knees to catch my prick in his hand and wring the final shuddering spurts from me.

I can’t stop convulsing. He wraps his free arm around my shoulders and pulls me tight against his heaving chest. I press my sweaty face against his hair and the _ushanka_ ’s luxuriant fur, while he strokes my back in long soothing sweeps. I let him gentle and baby me. He’s whispering worshipful endearments in my ear. I close my eyes and breathe him in, and still, despite our pounding hearts and sweat-soaked skin, the hint of snow remains.

* * * *

The wind is from the northwest. Bracing and cold, it sweeps before it all traces of autumn. Harry and I walk, our heads down and chins tucked into our scarves, following the banks of the Griboedova Canal. For the past couple of weeks in Wiltshire, the weather has been unseasonably warm. Not quite shirt-sleeve temperatures, but close. Here in St. Petersburg, I feel as though I’ve Apparated between seasons, not just countries.

My memories of this city are all of wind and slate skies and the occasional ray of light falling, unerringly, on gilt or bronze or the candied-pastels of palace walls. Even had I been born a Muggle, I know I would have been able to sense the magic here. You can practically smell it in the air, taste it on your tongue. 

I glance at Harry. His hands are plunged deep into the pockets of his long charcoal-grey merino coat, and his shoulders are hunched up around his ears. The wind catches his dark hair, sweeping it back from his forehead and his livid scar. Should I really wonder at how comfortable he seems here? How at home? Harry and St. Petersburg seem made for each other, and I know that he has grown to love it despite all his perfunctory grumbling about cold and daylight and too much jellied eel.

We turn on to Italyanskaya Ulista and weave through the crowd emerging from the Philharmonia. These are not the budget tourists of last night’s ballet. These are the Sunday matinee season-ticket holders, wearing ermine and standing in the biting wind, awaiting their drivers to collect them in their gleaming black Rolls Royces. These are the residents of the Astoria and Corinthia Nevskij Palace and the Grand Hotel Europe. As we pass, it’s easy to make out words spoken in at least a half-dozen different languages, and the air is redolent of their perfumes and colognes and the fancy soaps from their hotels.

“We’d better hurry,” he says. “If they’re all headed for lunch at the Grand, we’ll be waiting ages for a table.”

“What was it?” I ask, tipping my chin in the direction of the Philharmonia. Through its wide but unremarkable doors, I glimpse the brilliant flash of crystal chandeliers and the warm glow of wall-to-wall Italian marble in the foyer.

“Shostakovich,” he says. “I had tickets for Thursday last, but I gave them to Luna and Theo.”

“Those two are still shagging each other?”

“Hard to know. I think so, though,” he says. “And more power to them. It’s boring as all fuck in Irkutsk, and shagging makes the time pass as well as anything else.”

I don’t want to think about who _he_ makes the time pass with in Irkutsk, so instead I say, “Just never would have put those two together, is all.”

He turns his head and shoots me a sly smile. “People probably say the same about us.”

“Well, people are idiots.”

He snorts. “Charitable as always, Malfoy. Shall we?”

We’ve arrived at the entrance of the Grand Hotel Europe. The doorman holds the door for us, and we’re assailed by warmth and the smell of roasting coffee from the hotel’s elegant little café. I feel my cheeks sting as they thaw, and I notice Harry’s glasses have steamed over completely. He pulls them off and wipes them on his jumper.

“You know, I saw a picture of Shostakovich once,” I say. “He could have been your long-lost twin brother.”

He speaks to the hostess in halting, but cleanly enunciated Russian, and she leads us to a table at the far end of the glass atrium. We take our seats as she hands us menus.

“More like my great-grandfather than my twin brother. Wasn’t he born before World War I?”

I look up, considering for a moment. “Perhaps. I wouldn’t be surprised. All I really remember about him is that he broadcast a live performance of his Seventh Symphony from the Philharmonia when St. Petersburg was under siege during the second World War.”

He smiles at me and gives me another sly little wink before turning back to his menu.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says chirpily. “I just sometimes forget you took over Professor Chilliwither’s Muggle Studies class for that year she took off to study ancient medicinal practices in India, or wherever.”

“New Guinea. Yes. And my brain is still cluttered with Muggle trivia I will never need again and probably never needed in the first place.”

“I don’t know,” he muses. “I can picture you settling into a comfortable tenured position at Hogwarts and holding court at the Broomsticks on Saturday afternoons.”

I shudder and lay my menu on the table.

“Not likely. Hogsmeade is a twee little slice of hell. I’d go insane in a matter of weeks. In fact, as I’m sure you recall, I almost did.”

He laughs, reaching for my hand and giving it a sympathetic squeeze. “At least the commute between your rooms at Hogwarts and my flat in Belfast was relatively painless.”

“Certainly, compared to the commute between Wiltshire and St. Petersburg,” I reply. “It’s a good thing I trained so hard in long-distance Apparation and got all that practice while you were in Toronto.”

He gives me an apologetic little down-turning smile.

“I’m sorry it always has to be you making the trips,” he says. “I know what it takes out of you . . .”

“It’s not the end of the world,” I say, cutting him off. This is another conversation we’ve had a thousand times.

“Hermione told me about . . .”

I feel myself scowl.

“I know you love her,” I say. “But, damn it, she can be quite the interfering cunt at times.”

He frowns, but just then our waitress shows up at our table. Harry orders for us, and I’m greatly amused to feel my cock twitch at the sound of his deep voice speaking the guttural Russian words. I make a mental note to remember to ask him to say something in Russian while he’s got me strapped to the silver tether rings on the wall back at his flat. Even if he’s merely saying “where’s the gent’s” or some other tourist phrase, I can imagine he’s commanding me to spread my legs and take the ivory handle of his dressage whip to the hilt.

He orders two bowls of _rassolnik_ , a plate of fish _pelmeny_ and, of course, some sweet _pirozhki_ with jam and fresh cream. Such a sweet tooth has he, my Harry.

“Can you please not refer to Hermione as a ‘cunt,’” he says as soon as the waitress departs.

I sigh, lifting the lid of the teapot to see whether the tea inside is dark enough. Not yet, by half.

“All right,” I say.

He leans back in his chair and crosses his ankle over his knee, fiddling all the while with the fringe of his scarf, twining it around the tips of his fingers and pulling until the skin turns purple.

“I know you don’t really mean it,” he says. “And I also know you two have been getting together regularly recently.”

“Well, we do share a common interest, she and I.”

He smiles mischievously. “And who might that be? I didn’t know you had a thing for Neville . . .”

I pull a face. “Potter, please. The man is the father of two Hogwarts-aged girls.”

“And so could we be, if we had been so inclined. We’re no younger, after all.”

“Don’t remind me,” I sigh. The tea finally looks dark enough, and I pour us both cups.

“Anyway,” he says. “Hermione told me how she went to visit you at the Manor after you returned from St. Petersburg in July. She told me . . .”

I return the teapot to its saucer with a pointed clatter. “Now, _that_ is precisely what I’d meant when I called her an interfering . . .”

“Uh-uh,” he warns. “No ‘C’ word. ‘Interfering,’ yes. ‘C’ word, no.”

“I wasn’t going to say ‘cunt,’” I huff. “I was _going_ to say ‘cow.’”

“That’s hardly an improvement, Malfoy,” he scowls.

“Fine,” I say. “No more profane appellations. But, seriously,” I fix an expression on my face that I know he’ll be incapable of ignoring, “I would prefer that she not report back to you as though I’m one of her children and you’re my mother hen.”

“Draco, honestly. I can assure you she doesn’t make a habit of it. In fact, I have to _pry_ news of you out of her. Believe me, she takes your confidences very seriously. She’s like that, you know. Always has been . . .”

His eyes go slightly unfocused for a moment, and I know he’s remembering the days when they were children together. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he’s remembering those darker days, during the War, when Granger had been married to the Weasel, and they’d all lived together at Number Twelve . . .

“Anyway,” he says briskly. “It’s just that she was concerned. She said you hadn’t been able to leave your bed for several days . . .”

“A day and a half.”

“Well, however long it was, it was too long in my book.”

“That was an unusual occurrence,” I say. “I must have been fighting a cold or something.”

I look past his shoulder at the table behind him. The two middle-aged women, clutching their coffee cups and leaning forward conspiratorially in deep conversation, have impossibly red hair and impossibly dark lips. We’re silent for several minutes, and I find myself praying he’ll be satisfied with my explanation and let it go. It’s partially true, after all. I do think I was coming down with something. But it was more than that, too. I’d come damn close to splinching for the third time in as many years. The first time, I’d thought I was just getting sloppy. But then when it happened again, I began to worry that it was because I was getting older. After the third time, I realised there was a distinct emotional component involved. The first two times, I’d Apparated immediately following unusually heated arguments. And the third time – this last time – I’d Apparated right after he’d told me that he was going to Irkutsk and didn’t want me visiting him there. We’d just made love in the early dawn light. Not fucked, but made love. Slowly and tenderly, and I’d nearly wept when I came because it was so fucking beautiful and because I wanted him so fucking much. He’d held me and kissed me and then told me, and I’d felt the breath leave my lungs like a punch to the solar plexus.

He just looks at me, and though my eyes are not on his, I can feel them boring into my skull. I summon all my considerable strength and skill as an Occlumens and shut him out. I hear him sigh.

“All right,” he says. “All right.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

There’s another awkward silence before he says, “You can’t blame Hermione for being worried. Or me either, for that matter.”

“I don’t blame either of you. It’s just that I think it was a one-time occurrence, and I would prefer not to discuss it.”

He nods and reaches across the table for my hand. “Okay. I respect that.” He squeezes my fingers, and I squeeze back. After a couple of minutes, the tension recedes.

When our waitress sets our food on the table, I suddenly realise how famished I am. The _rassolnik_ is perfect, tangy and sweet at the same time, with its distinctive blend of pickled cucumber and pureed kidney. The chef has drizzled sour cream in a spiral from the edges of the bowl to the centre. Harry closes his eyes after the first spoonful, a bliss-filled expression on his face. We finish our soup with the focused attention of men who have worked up serious appetites. 

“So,” he says, dabbing at his mouth with his linen serviette before reaching for one of the fish dumplings. “Shostakovich did a live broadcast during the siege?”

I nod around a mouthful of _pelmeny_ and then wash it down with a swallow of tea before answering.

“His Seventh Symphony,” I say, scrunching my nose in distaste. “Which is by far his worst work, in my opinion at least. It’s so . . . oh, I don’t know . . . _unsubtle_.”

He chuckles. “Well, that explains why you don’t like it then, being the connoisseur of subtlety you’ve become.”

“Yes,” I say with an ironic smile, “wouldn’t my father have been surprised to see the way I’ve turned out.”

“Well, given the way you were at school, I can’t say I’d blame him.”

“Subtlety is an acquired taste,” I say, letting my voice purr slightly, knowing it would go straight to his groin, filling his senses with memories of my dungeon and its smell of oiled wood and leather, and the creak and groan of stainless steel chains.

“Indeed,” he purrs in response.

I pull my lower lip between my teeth to moisten it with my tongue, watching with immense satisfaction as his gaze drops to my mouth and stays there. I hope he is recalling our first kiss. How it felt. What I had given him then, in that moment.

“Anyhow,” I say. “I’m sure his listeners didn’t care whether it was subtle or not.”

He raises his eyes back to mine and reaches for the jam-filled _pirozhki_.

“No, I’m sure they didn’t,” he replies darkly. “More than a million people in this city died during the siege.”

He turns to the wall of the atrium and gazes through the dripping steamy panes of glass. My gaze follows his unconsciously. It’s snowing again, but only lightly. The flakes drift lazily from the sky, settling on the scarved heads of street vendors and the gleaming manes of the horses, standing, necks bowed, in a queue of waiting _droshkies_.

“It lasted nine hundred days,” he says finally. “The siege, I mean. Can you imagine being without food or water or fuel in St. Petersburg in December?”

“Certainly not as a Muggle,” I reply.

We’re quiet, both of us sipping our tea and watching the street outside.

“Imagine a million people in London dying,” he says. “No wonder this city has such a brooding air to it. And is so uncompromisingly hedonistic in its pleasures.”

 _Just like you, Harry_ , I think.

Instead I say, “Living so close to death can do that, I suppose.”

The silence that descends on us is deafening. I feel my eyes widen with horror, and I – _literally_ – clasp my hand over my mouth. His eyes are wide, too. Out of shock at the unthinkingness of my remark or in response to whatever it is he sees on my face, I can’t be sure.

“That was the most idiotic thing I think I’ve ever said.”

“Why is it idiotic?” he asks, his voice brittle and his words oddly clipped. “It’s true, after all.”

“Merlin, Harry,” I say. “You know _exactly_ why it was so idiotic. I can’t believe I said that!”

“You said it, Draco, because it’s on your mind.”

I swallow and close my eyes for a moment. For the third time, he reaches for my hand. But this time, he gives it a slight tug, and I move my chair around the table so we’re sitting side by side, our knees and thighs touching under the tablecloth. He pulls me against him for an instant and brushes a kiss against my temple. I relax into the fleeting embrace and feel bereft when he releases me.

“How am I going to be able to leave you on Tuesday?” I whisper.

Of course, he doesn’t answer. There’s no answer to such a question.

 

We pay our bill and walk back out into the windy street. The snow must have been nothing more than a passing squall because the sky is once again slate grey with cracks of distant blue showing through here and there. We wrap our scarves around our necks and button our coats.

“Do you want to walk?” he asks.

“All right,” I answer.

“In the mood to see something new, or should we return to one of our old haunts?”

I think for a moment. “Something new,” I say at last.

We head back toward the Griboedova Canal, but instead of turning left towards the direction of his flat and Nevskiy Prospekt, we turn right.

“We’ll go as far as Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki and then come back along the Fontanka Canal,” he says.

“Fontanka,” I say. “That sounds familiar.”

“That’s because it flows by Mikhaylovskiy Castle.”

“Ah!” I say. “Well that certainly explains why I remember it.”

Mikhaylovskiy Castle is part of the sprawling Russian Museum, and I’d spent hours there when he had things to do with the squad and left me to find my own entertainment. But that’s not why I recall it so vividly. The reason I remember it is the poppies. The acres of orange poppies and the way Harry’s dark hair had looked, fanned out around his head, as he lay on his back in the middle of them. The contrast of the flaming orange and the dark sheen of his hair had looked so exotic, so intoxicating. I’d kissed him breathless while groups of tourists and picnicking city-dwellers milled around, passing right by us with our _Imperturbables_ and _Disillusionment_ charms. It’d been the day before my birthday, and I remember thinking giddily, as I drank in the taste of his mouth like wine, that this – _this_ – was all I wanted, and that Harry, on his back surrounded in poppies, with sunlight glancing off the lenses of his glasses and his mouth kissed raw, was not only all I wanted, but all I needed. All I would ever need . . .

It must be nearing three o’ clock because the sun has sunk to such an extent that its light falls in concentrated slants between the four and five-storey buildings lining the western bank of the canal. As it is in my memories of Scotland, the mid-November light in St. Petersburg is rich and golden, as though the sun is trying to compensate for the few hours it has left in the sky by displaying its fullest palette. The light is beautiful and nearly devoid of warmth. It reminds me of late afternoon Quidditch practices and standing down by the lake, skipping stones and telling rude jokes with Vince and Greg until our fingers grew too numb and cold, and we had to squeeze them in our armpits to restore feeling.

The memory is bittersweet. Like so many of our schoolmates, Vince and Greg are dead, and their deaths had been neither peaceful nor heroic. They’d had the misfortune to survive long enough in the Dark Lord’s service to wind up cornered with him and about a dozen fellow Death Eaters in a windowless bunker in southern Wales. He’d killed them himself, before the Order had arrived, most likely in a petulant rage because one of them had put sugar in his tea or something equally stupid and mundane. I had never taken the Mark, but I had come close. So I’d had no difficulty imagining, when I’d been informed of their deaths, the extremity of terror and pain they must have experienced before they were permitted to die.

I reach blindly for Harry’s hand, and our fingers twine together on contact. It’s been years since all those sad private funerals, attended by mothers but no fathers – themselves long since dead and buried. It’s been years, but I know I will never forgive myself for having escaped their fate. In the end, it had been accident and nothing more. No change of heart. No moral epiphanies. No sudden recognition that I was on the wrong side and had been, apparently, since the day I was born. If anything it’d been cowardice that saved me, and, although I am grateful in hindsight, I am even more deeply ashamed for it.

It was that shame that, in my twenties, drove me to greater and greater sexual extremes. Well, in part it was the shame. It was also rage and lust and a newfound death wish that I’d embraced, open-armed, like a lover. And then along came Harry. When I’d least expected him and least wanted him. Of course, in retrospect I realise that I’d not only expected him, but was waiting for him. Waiting for him to find me and call me out for the coward that I was. I had long thought, even back in our early years at Hogwarts, that Harry – not my father, not the Dark Lord, but Harry Potter – would be the one to kill me, and I’d been right. I can’t remember how many men I’d let fuck me that night in Berlin, or even how many times I’d come myself, reveling in my own degradation and abuse. It could have been a dozen, or it could have been fifty. I have no recollection and probably didn’t even know at the time. But one man had fucked me – fucked me _hard_ – and then dropped to his knees and licked me clean. Cleaner than I’d been when I’d walked into the club hours earlier, tight-holed and unfucked. Cleaner perhaps than I’d ever been. I’d come under his tender ministrations, his tongue fucking my plundered anus. I’d come so hard that I’d forgot completely where I was, and _who_ I was. And he’d held me up as I came, supporting me, acknowledging my every spasm for what it was – a gift. A respite from loneliness. When at last he released me and turned to leave, I did something I’d never done before – that I’d never thought I _could_ do. I thanked him. This unknown man who’d left me cleaner than the day I was born.

And then he’d spoken.

_‘Oh, you’re welcome.’_

I knew that voice. Would have known it if it were the end of the world and I stood braced against the four winds of the Apocalypse. Harry Potter. The living breathing walking talking, and now apparently rimming, embodiment of all that was noble and good. Like the Muggle Jesus with his Apostles, the Saviour of the Wizarding World had got onto his knees and washed me clean. Me. Draco Malfoy. Son of a Death Eater and a would-be-Death-Eater himself, if it weren’t for his cowardice. I had done everything to deserve his contempt, and nothing to deserve the amazing grace he’d shown me. And he knew it, too. His eyes told me all I needed to know. He hated me. Had always hated me. But now he also owned me and could choose how and when to dispose of me. I’d been bought and paid for.

I’d thought about offing myself about a thousand times after that night, and a couple of times I’d even tried to. But in the end, like everything else I’d attempted thus far in my life, I’d failed. So instead, I decided to live: I decided that surviving was the cruelest thing I could do to him in return. I’d show up at dinners and parties and functions where I knew he’d be, doing his Hero Routine, and I’d make _sure_ that he saw me. It was over those two years that I developed many of my current habits and tastes. I disposed of my trainers and jeans and t-shirts and jumpers. I took to having my hair trimmed and my nails manicured once a week. I took to shaving with a straight-edge and dressing impeccably every morning, even if the only person I was breakfasting with that day was my harpy of a wife. Every fabric that touched my skin was of the finest weave and cut. Every piece of jewellery, every pair of cufflinks, was hand-crafted. It was also during that time that I’d made the final acquisitions for my dungeon, every purchase with Harry in mind. And somehow, amazingly and without my even being aware that it was happening, I’d changed. Not just my appearance and the way I carried myself. It went deeper than that – as deep, in fact, as I’d been done by Harry. I grew calm, steady, focused. Things I hadn’t been able to do, as far as my magic was concerned, were suddenly easy. I awoke on the anniversary of that night in Berlin a stronger man. Stronger than I would have ever imagined possible, and it was all because of Harry and the obsession I’d developed. I was going to have my sweet revenge. I knew I would. It had only been a matter of time . . . .

“Do you see that?”

I look up, startled. Tangled in my thoughts, I must have been walking with my head down, watching my boots in the thin layer of windswept snow.

“See what?” I ask.

He stops and drapes his arm around my shoulders, pointing with his other arm. I follow his gaze to the single gold dome on the most ornate church I have ever seen. The late afternoon sun falls on it, reflecting on to the ground. I glance around us and realise we’re standing on a gleaming expanse of gold-drenched snow. Our shadows stretch out long and dark behind us, but before us is only light. My eyes water with the brightness of it, and I stare transfixed, my gaze flicking from the dome to the snow and back to the dome again. It is all so piercingly beautiful that I feel as though someone is squeezing my heart in their fist. My feet grow cold as I continue to stand there, but I find I can’t move, even if I wanted to.

At last, I turn to glance at Harry’s face. He’s watching me, and the look in his eyes is ardent and fierce. He tenses the arm still draped over my shoulder and pulls me in hard against his chest, bruising my mouth in an angry kiss.

“Sometimes . . . .” he gasps, nipping and biting at my lips. “Sometimes I still hate you.”

I open my mouth to him and offer him my tongue. He sucks it into his mouth hungrily. One of his fists is wrapped in my hair, and I feel him tremble, gripped by the throat in an extremity of feeling.

“I know,” I say, when I’m able to tear my mouth from his. “Sometimes I still hate you, too.”

He presses his forehead against mine, rocking his head feverishly from side to side. His hands are gripping my arms tightly until I’m sure they’re leaving bruises even with shirt and coat and gloves between his flesh and mine.

“You . . . you . . .” He gropes for words, his voice hoarse and pained. “You are so beautiful. Draco. Sometimes it hurts me just to look at you.”

He speaks the last sentence in a whisper like a secret, or a confession.

“And do you know what never ceases to fucking amaze me?” he continues. “It’s been years . . . _years_ . . . and I can still taste you on my tongue. Like that night in Berlin was only yesterday.”

I’m stunned for a second, wondering if he’s been practising _Legilimency_ on me. How else could we both have been thinking of that night, more than ten years ago, at the exact same time? But as soon as it occurs to me, I reject it. I would have felt something. I’ve had him in my head almost as many times as I’ve had him in my arse, and like every other way he gets inside me, it has a particular feel to it. I would know.

“I want you,” he groans. “I can’t believe you’re here. That I can see you, touch you, _taste_ you. I thought I would _die_ from wanting you. I thought I was going crazy.”

I test his grip on my arms to see if it has loosened, and finding that it has, I shrug out of his grasp and wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him with all the hunger he’d kissed me.

“Let’s go back to the flat.” I gasp the words against his mouth.

“No,” he growls. “I want you _here_.”

“As in _here_ here? It’s a bit chilly . . .”

“Come on,” he says and grabs my hand.

We run like children toward the church with its red brick and ornate gingerbread steeples. The sun has almost disappeared, but it seems to love that gold dome too much to bear to let it go. Our feet leave deep, shadowed footprints in the gilded snow. Just before we slip through a side door, he casts a couple of _Disillusionment_ charms, and we pass undetected by tourists and guards as we walk swiftly, still hand in hand, the length of the nave. I spare only fleeting glances for the lapis and the gold mosaics with their sad-faced Muggle saints. My eyes are all for Harry.

At last, we slip behind the iconostasis and into the sanctuary, our cold hands fumbling with buttons and buckles. He pushes his hips into mine, and my knuckles graze wet wool as I pull at my belt to loosen it.

“Mmmm,” I murmur against his neck. “Is that for me?”

“Fuck _yes_ it’s for you,” he growls. He gives up trying to get his trousers undone and simply grabs my wrist, thrusting my fingers beneath the waistband. “Touch me, Draco. Please touch me.”

My groin tightens with blood and heat at the naked lust I hear in his voice. I don’t have much room to manoeuvre, but it’s enough to wrap my fingers around his cock. They slip in the wetness slicking the cloth of his underwear and soaking through the front of his trousers. He groans into my hair, and I nuzzle his face until he looks up and I can kiss him.

The taste of his tongue and the feel of him in my hand send me over an unforeseen edge. I can’t help myself when I begin rutting furiously against my hand and his cock. My breath is coming in harsh grunts, and I watch as his head falls back with a painful sounding _thunk_ against the marble column we’re leaning against. I bite his neck, suck and lap at the marks I leave, and then bite again.

He finally gets his trousers open, and I groan when my hand can reach around him properly. I hold my other hand up to his lips and, when we kiss again, I slip in two fingers along with my tongue. He suckles them hungrily, taking them past the knuckles and making our kiss messy and wet. I pull away and lick the saliva from his throat and chin and then reach behind him with my moistened fingers.

“I want to fuck you,” I whisper.

He moans and spreads his legs wider, giving me easy access to his arse. Not wanting to lose too much of the slick wetness on my fingers, I make short work of readying his hole. The tip of my finger probes the tight pucker of flesh, demanding entrance, and I feel the grateful spasm as his body invites mine in. That tiny opening kisses and squeezes my fingertip, and I’m almost struck blind with the force of my lust. I tighten my other hand on his prick and angle my own against his thigh. He intuits my goal, bringing his knee up between my legs and bracing his foot against the column. I ride his thigh with abandon.

He pumps his hips into the hand encircling his cock and then back against the fingers that are now buried as far as I can reach in his rectum. His head is still thrown back, and with every thrust, it rocks like a piece of driftwood on the surface of the ocean. He’s aware of nothing but the way my skilled and knowing hands feel on him - and in him. His throat is pink and splotchy, and his skin glistens with sweat in the sanctuary’s sourceless light. He doesn’t know – and perhaps he never can know – how _perfect_ he looks to me when he’s like this, flushed and out of his head with arousal. I drink in the sight of him for as long as I can, but at last he begs me to make him come, and I have to relent. I pull my fingers from his arse and reinsert just one this time, reaching as far as I can around his back so the pad of my fingertip can find the lovely round bump of his prostate and milk it gently.

With a heartfelt groan, he empties his balls between our bellies, soaking my hand and my shirt in equal measure. I continue massaging his prostate until there are no longer hot spurts accompanying the spasms, and even then I’m reluctant to release him or to pull my finger from his anus. It feels too good to be touching him in such an intimate manner, and my heart clenches at the mere thought of having to sit at the restaurant later tonight, in separate chairs and on opposite sides of the table. It’s never good enough to simply remember. I want to be this close to him, pleasuring him, every minute of my waking day. And night, too. If I could fall asleep with my cock buried in his arse, I know I’d sleep like a baby . . .

His hands are on my hips, moving me to where he’d been. I lean against the column, feeling the cool rounded marble through my shirt with a rush of relief. My body is on fire, and I’m sure that if I could see my face in a mirror, my cheeks would be burning fever bright. He kneels on the floor and frees my poor throbbing prick. His mouth feels like heaven. If I wasn’t so far gone, I know I’d feel almost embarrassed at the desperate, needy sounds I’m making as I thrust jerkily into his hands as they cradle my hips. I bury my face in my hands to keep from screaming when he teases my slit with the tip of his tongue, and with my first ragged inhalation, I smell him on my fingers. I come violently, my back arching away from the column. I can’t seem to stop thrusting and coming, but finally my orgasm recedes from my body, and I slump bonelessly against his hands, just like that night in Berlin when he’d rimmed me into coming within an inch of my sanity.

 

 _Scourgified_ and dressed once again, Harry throws a handful of roubles into the bronze offering plate and lights two votive candles. Outside, it’s dark and snowing fitfully. I tilt my head back and look up at the sky. The light flakes tingle as they melt on contact with my skin. We skirt the edges of the Mikhaylovskiy Gardens until we near the southern bank of the Moyka Canal. The water has iced over, but only along the edges. At the centre, it flows strong and dark and cold, lighted windows from the buildings on the opposite bank reflecting off its surface like the fire of distant torches. We follow the canal east, stepping through the shadows cast by leafless branches under orange street lamps. Harry slips his arm through mine.

“They may have to rename that church now,” he says in a playful confiding voice.

“Why? What is it currently called?” I ask.

“The Church on Spilled Blood,” he replies.

“Ah, I see. It appears to have a proud history of bodily secretions. I’m glad we could contribute.”

He exhales a rueful little laugh in a puff of white breath. “Do you think it’ll ever change?” I can feel him glance at me.

“Will what ever change?” I ask.

“Us. That.”

I snort. “Articulate as ever, Potter. Do you mean our wanting one another so badly that we’re unable to bear waiting another second before we get our hands on each other?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Do _you_ think it will change?” I turn the question back at him. It’s one of my standard conversational tactics, and it doesn’t faze him for a second.

“I asked you first.”

“Do I think it will change? No. I don’t,” I say.

“Why not? Don’t all couples grow slightly bored of each other after awhile?” he asks. “Isn’t it just a natural law that proximity and familiarity breed a certain indifference? Fond indifference, perhaps, but indifference nonetheless?”

The mournful sound of a violin drifts from the gardens. I turn my head to see a lone figure standing in a small, poorly lit piazza lined with park benches and authentic nineteenth-century gas lamps. I watch the dark shadow of the man’s bow slide across the snow as he plays, as though it were a giant needle embroidering a linen tablecloth.

Beginning to feel distinctly annoyed, I turn back to Harry.

“I wouldn’t know,” I say, not bothering to conceal my pique.

“What about you and Astoria?” he asks, and I roll my eyes.

“I wouldn’t say our marriage involved either proximity or familiarity. We hardly knew each other when we got engaged, and we hated each other by the end of the honeymoon. When she wasn’t at her mother’s apartment in Paris, she mostly resided in the West Wing of the Manor while I lived in the East Wing. We crossed paths at mealtimes, and even then not if we could help it.”

He tightens his arm against mine. “I was too busy trying to get you away from her to think about how lonely that must have been.”

“For her or for me?” I ask.

“For both of you.” He sighs. “I wonder if I would have liked it.”

“What? Being married to Astoria?”

“No, silly,” he says. “Being married to you.”

I have no idea how to interpret this remark. It’s playful, but at the same time wistful and sad. We’ve never talked about marriage. In the beginning, I was still married, myself. The divorce had taken _years_. And then his job had consumed his life. Well, my life too, but in a different way. The longest we’d spent together at one time over the past several years was six weeks – the longest he’d ever gone in-between assignments. And of course there was always our unspoken understanding that, although we were emotionally monogamous, we were far from being so sexually. Especially Harry, whose erotic appetite seemed at times without limits or bounds. When we are together, he never fucks anyone else (unless I’m watching, of course), but when we’re apart. . . . Well. What I don’t know, shouldn’t hurt, right? After I’d fallen in love with him, I’d discovered, to my deep distress, that the thought of him with anyone else made me sick with jealousy. It’s a weakness of mine that I’ve tamed over the years but have never been able to conquer. He knows about it and is . . . discreet . . . in his references. But I’ve always wondered if we’d married, or lived together full time, whether he’d stop. Whether he could be satisfied with just me, alone. The fear that the answer may be “no” is one of the reasons I’ve never pressed the idea.

But I’m in that kind of mood, so I decide to call his bluff. “Well, you could always find out.”

He is silent, and I kick myself for being so stupid as to open myself up to the pain that this pointless conversation will undoubtedly cause. I have more of Harry than anyone else has ever had - and ever will have. I know this. It should be enough to satisfy me . . . .

Fuck “should.” It _has_ to be.

I wave my hand impatiently in front of my face as though I’m shooing away a cloud of gnats.

“Forget it,” I say, my tone clipped and business-like. “This is an asinine conversation. You asked me if I think we’ll ever change, whether we’ll ever want each other any less. And I said, ‘no.’ That’s the way _I_ feel at least, so that is my answer. Speculate all you want . . . .”

He stops in his tracks, and our linked arms bring me up short like a colt on a close tether.

“Draco. Stop it.”

His voice is pained.

“Why?” I say. “Because you can’t bear to hear even just the tiniest hint of jealousy? Because you don’t want to close your eyes while some blond-haired Russian boy is sucking you off and have my face come between you and your orgasm?”

“Draco. Please.”

I stop. Not because he asked me to, but because I’m ashamed of the naked plea in my voice. I feel my cheeks burning and try to pull away from him. He fights me.

“Damn it, Harry!”

He’s not physically stronger than me, but his reflexes are quicker. He grabs my arm as I start to walk away and whips me back around to face him.

“Damn it, Harry,” I hiss. “Damn you! Why dangle offers in front of me that I know you’ll never mean, only to make me jealous? You don’t like it when I get like this, but how do you think _I_ feel? I don’t want to feel this way, believe me! I don’t care if you never go back to the same one twice. I hate them all. Whether they fuck you once or fuck you a hundred times. I could rip their hearts out with my bare hands.”

I pause for breath, my chest heaving. The white smoke of my words is like a fire burning between us.

“How do you think it felt?” I continue. “You refuse to let me come see you in Irkutsk, and there I am, sitting in fucking Wiltshire, night after night, knowing that someone else is taking care of you, when it should be _me_. Damn it, haven’t I earned that, at least? The right to be the one you fuck into the mattress every night? What have they done to deserve you? Nothing. _Nothing!_ ”

He grabs me and pulls me in hard against his chest, and whether it’s an effort to shut me up or to comfort me, I can’t be sure. Perhaps a bit of both. I hear my trapped breaths rasping in the enclosed space between our bodies. He wraps his fist in my hair, tugging hard, and I bite my cheek against the cry of shock I feel in my throat.

“There has been no one,” he hisses angrily. “No one, Draco. No one in Irkutsk . . .” he tugs my hair again by way of punctuation. “No one here in St. Petersburg.” Another tug. I feel my eyes tear up. “No one in Cluj-Napoca, or Sienna or Belfast or Reykjavík.” The last tug officially hurts, and I inhale sharply, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Did you hear me?” he asks, his voice low and dangerous. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“How long?” I ask without opening my eyes. But he ignores my question.

“You’re celibate for a few months, and you want a fucking award,” he snarls. “Well, except for you and my hand, I’ve been celibate for five years!”

He releases me so suddenly that I almost fall over. I watch, stunned, as he turns and starts walking, his long coat billowing like robes and the lights of the Panteleymon Bridge twinkling around his outline like a constellation of stars. At about twenty yards he turns, although he’s still walking. His face is as white as the ice on the edges of the Moyka Canal.

“You have no idea, Draco,” he calls. “No fucking idea.”

He turns, and without the white of his skin, his dark hair and dark clothes render him all but invisible in the descending snow. Flakes settle in my eyelashes, and I have to blink them away. When I open my eyes, he is gone.

 

I walk until I hit the Fontanka Canal. It’s wider than the Moyka and the Griboedova, and there is not yet ice along its edges. Boats carrying tourists and well-dressed theatregoers pass beneath me as I lean against the railing, staring into the dark, swirling water. The patterns in the current mesmerise and soothe me, and I feel the furious coursing of my blood settle and slow. On the other side of the canal, people are lining up outside of Café Purga. Harry and I tried to go there with Lovegood, O’Malley and Longbottom on the squad’s first night here, but we’d had to leave almost immediately after being seated because Lovegood came unhinged over the decor. Dozens of rabbit sculptures hung from the walls and ceilings. Their eyes were bulging and alarmingly animate, but their bodies were hairless and skeletal, as though they’d been skinned from their necks down and their bones stripped of flesh. It was certainly eerie, but the aura of butchery was offset by the fact that every night at Café Purga is New Year’s Eve, and the mood and dress of staff and patrons alike are appropriately festive. In fact, we’d all come prepared with hats and noise makers, and I’d asked for the champagne list. But Lovegood had insisted on leaving, and rather than cause her to spend her first night in a strange city alone, we all went with her to some brightly-lit fast-food _blini_ shop on Nevskiy. I’d asked Harry about it later. Lovegood has never ceased seeming like a loose cannon to me; you never knew what might set her off, and I have a hard time imagining how she could ever be of more use than she is trouble. But Harry swore that in a tight-spot, there was no head in the squad cooler than hers . . . .

Harry. I drop my face into my hands and dig my fingertips into my eyes, trying to gouge out the memory of anger and hurt in his face. The full extent of all that he’d said refuses to sink in, glancing off the surface of my brain like sunlight off water. Five years. _Five fucking years!_ And all that time I’d thought . . . he’d _let_ me think . . . It made no sense. And if, in fact, there has been no one but me for the last five years, then why had my telling him last night that I’d had no one but him since he’d left for St. Petersburg made him so upset? There is something askew, something I’m not seeing . . .

A boat with tiny electric Christmas lights garnishing its metal railings passes beneath me. It’s full of young girls, probably around fifteen or sixteen years-old. They all wear candy-coloured gowns and fake fur shawls. Some of them have tiaras in their tinted hair that twinkle like the holiday lights. They’re accompanied by three men, probably in their early twenties. I watch as they pop the corks on champagne bottles and slosh the sparkling liquid in the plastic glasses the girls hold out to them. One of the girls looks up at me as they pass, and we hold each other’s eyes for a long moment. She’s whorishly pretty, her face made up like a doll with white powder and painted lips. She quirks the side of her mouth in a smile, and I wonder what she must see in my face to make her think I require the strangely intimate comfort of a stranger. I smile back at her, and she ducks her head shyly. A little girl once more.

I feel arms circle my waist and a forehead touch the back of my head. I let go of the railing and clasp the hands in mine.

“I’m sorry.”

We say it at the same time and laugh awkwardly. I turn in Harry’s arms.

“I don’t know what’s got into me,” he whispers into my hair.

I lift his chin in my fingers and turn his face so I can see it clearly in the light of the street lamp we’re standing under. He looks tired and worn. I press my lips against his, kissing him softly.

“For one thing, you’re probably starving,” I say. “And for another, you’re probably exhausted. I don’t even know what time you got up this morning.”

He shrugs and leans his head against my arm. “I could be talked into having dinner.”

“Didn’t you say you made us reservations for this evening?”

“I did,” he says. “But it’s a black-tie kind of place, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have to go back home, change, and head out again. I’m afraid if I see the inside of my flat right now, I’ll never make it back out the door again.”

“It’s all the same to me,” I say and kiss his cheek. His stubble is at least two days along, and it scrapes against my lips. “I’m not in the mood for much fanfare, either. If you know of some place cosy and quiet, let’s go there.”

He pulls me closer against him and buries his face between my neck and the soft cashmere wool of my scarf. We stand like this for several minutes, and I sense that he is struggling to compose himself.

“Look at us,” he laughs weakly. “If the people we were ten years ago could hear us now . . .”

I smile ruefully and step back to kiss the tip of his nose. “Forget ten years ago. If the people we were when we were sixteen could hear _and_ see us now.”

“I wonder what it would be like in another ten years?” He takes my hand, and we start walking back toward the gardens. “I wonder what we could be doing so that we’d say, ‘Wow, if the people we were ten years ago could see us now . . .?’”

“Probably hanging chintz drapery in my dungeon, or something similar.”

He sputters with laughter.

“All right. Touché. That is an _appalling_ thought!”

I’m so relieved to hear him laugh that I feel myself grinning from ear to ear. “It would make for some interesting studies in contrast, you have to admit.”

He shudders theatrically. “Are we out of sight?”

I glance around quickly. “Looks like it. Side by side, or do you want to give me the address?”

“Side by side is fine. I’ve Apparated there before, and I can picture a little park nearby the restaurant that should work fine.”

I tuck my arm through his, and he takes my hand, twining his fingers with mine and slipping both of our hands into the pocket of his coat.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Whenever you are.” 

 

Staraya Derevnya is both cosy and quiet, and the hostess seats us at a table in the back, away from the piano. The decor is Bohemian Paris, and the music is turn-of-the-century jazz. The candle on our table, in its green cut-glass holder, flickers comfortingly, and I can feel him start to relax as he rolls up the sleeves of his jumper and picks up a menu.

“A bottle of wine?” he asks.

“Sure. What’s the cuisine here?”

“Russian Jewish. Comfort food.”

“Hhhmmmm.” I pinch my bottom lip between my thumb and index finger and squint at the wine list. “Can I borrow your glasses for a second?”

He chuckles. “What’s wrong, Malfoy? Going blind as a bat, like me?”

“I should hope it’s not _that_ dire,” I reply.

“I would give them to you, but they’re not what you need. I’m near-sighted, not far-sighted.”

“Interesting,” I say archly. “I hadn’t realised you were sighted at _any_ distance.”

“Oh, think again,” he purrs. “I see better than 20/20 close-up.”

I give him a musing smile. “All right, you got me. I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds salacious whatever it is.”

He laughs, and I go back to squinting at the wine list.

“Here, give that to me,” he says fondly. I hand it to him, and to my satisfaction note that he has to lift his glasses and lean in toward the candle to read it.

“Now who looks like an old man?” I lean back in my chair and cross my legs, draping my arm over the back of a neighbouring chair.

“There are no corrective lenses for deciphering flowery script,” he says. “What did we say earlier? Red?”

“Sure.” I watch him furrow his brow and wink one eye closed and then the other. “Perhaps we should simply have our waiter read it for us,” I say. “Like the pensioners we are.”

He flashes me a mock glare and returns to his task.

“How about one of the Georgian reds? Something with the _Rkatsiteli_ grape. Mukuzani, perhaps? I think you’ll like it.”

“Sounds perfect to me,” I say.

 

Both the wine and the food are excellent, and we top off our meals with glasses of Armenian _konyak_. The waiter leaves the half-empty bottle on our table and tells us in halting English to take our time. The smell of vanilla and oak mingles with the hot wax from our candle and the _syrniki_ frying in the kitchen. Harry swirls his snifter beneath his nose and inhales deeply. I wait for him to take a sip and savour it on his tongue before leaning forward to ask the question whose answer I must learn before this night is over.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Harry?”

He closes his eyes wearily and sets his glass back on the table.

“There’s a short and a long answer.” He opens his eyes and fixes me with a steady gaze. “The short answer is that I didn’t want you to know.”

I frown and tear my eyes from his, staring down into the amber depths of my _konyak_. “I thought we understood that we would never lie to each other.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” he says. “I just never told you the truth. I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but there is a distinction. Besides, you simply assumed that nothing had changed, and I never did anything to undermine that assumption. But I never told you that I was shagging other people when I wasn’t.”

I look up and re-engage his intense gaze.

“I was,” I say. “Shagging other people, I mean. Up until about nine months ago.”

“I know,” he says levelly. “And that’s the way I liked it.”

Again, I frown and drop my gaze.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why do you _want_ to share me with other people? I mean, I can understand tolerating it, which is basically what I’ve done – or rather _thought_ I was doing – with you. But why would you _want_ it? Is it _that_ much of a turn-on?”

“Ah. Now we’re getting to the long answer.”

“Well, we’ve got half a bottle of _konyak_ , and the night is young.”

He sighs and leans back heavily in his chair. I can tell he has little appetite for this discussion.

“Does it turn me on?” he asks rhetorically. “Yes and no. Thinking of you sexually in any way imaginable turns me on. There’s no doubt about that. Thinking about you taking your morning shit turns me on.”

I roll my eyes.

“One of these days, I’ll find something – _some_ bodily function that I’m capable of – that won’t give you a hard-on.”

He seizes the opportunity to lighten the mood. “Well, I caught you picking your nose once . . .”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Potter! Is nothing sacred? Are there _no_ boundaries?”

He laughs. “Listen, after two people have urinated on one another while the recipient wanks himself to orgasm, the question of boundaries becomes a little murky. Not to mention when two people have had their hands buried up to their wrists . . .”

I cast a quick glance at our fellow diners to ensure no one’s having a heart attack. “All right, point taken. Back to my question about why you want me shagging other people.”

“Well, I was saying that, yes, it does turn me on – the thought of you getting off turns me on, regardless. I’d watch some bloke suck you off in half a heartbeat as long as I got to kiss your mouth while he’s doing it. And that’s the main issue, I guess. Yes, it turns me on, but it also makes me so fucking out-of-my-head jealous that I could go on an _Avada Kedavra_ spree at the mere thought of it.”

I stare at him for a moment or two, letting this piece of information sink in. He twists the top off the bottle and pours another shot into each of our glasses.

“So,” I say, “what I hear you saying is that the thought of me with another bloke turns you on, but it also makes you insane with jealousy. Am I correct?”

He nods. “Pretty much.”

“And you do realise, of course, that this is _precisely_ how I’ve felt about you, and about which we’ve had so many arguments?”

He nods again. “Although, I will add that since I stopped fucking around, I’ve always framed the question of my doing so rhetorically. I have never lied to you, Draco.”

“Perhaps,” I say. “Perhaps you’re _technically_ correct in that regard, but nonetheless you made me feel like a right bastard sometimes. Like I was being clingy and irrational. And now I discover you felt the same way. And for how long, may I ask?”

“Honestly?” he says. “Since that second time in your dungeon. The night we first kissed. When I was choosing a riding crop for you I wondered fleetingly who else you’d let do that to you, and it made me mental for a second. It was then I knew I was in trouble . . .”

I close my eyes and then open them deliberately, trying to clear my head. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yes,” he says. “It was.”

“Why am I only learning about it now? This is the part I still don’t understand and, frankly, the part that bothers me the most.”

“I know,” he says levelly. “I’d feel the same way if I were in your place. But this is the hard part, Draco, and I don’t know how much of this I can explain. Or bear to tell you.”

I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. “Please try.”

He takes a deep breath. “All right. The answer is Sirius Black.”

I simply stare at him, utterly baffled.

“Sirius Black. My godfather. Our fifth year at Hogwarts. One day he was there, and the next day he wasn’t. I had him, and then I lost him.”

He scrubs his face in his palms, causing his fringe to stick up and making him look even more vexed and hectic than usual. I wait for him to continue. I know about Sirius, of course. And I thought I knew what losing him at that moment in his life had done to Harry. But clearly, I hadn’t guessed everything.

“I’ve been to dark places.” His voice is frank and totally devoid of drama or self-pity. “But that was the darkest. Maybe because he was the first person I’d loved and lost as an adult. Maybe because he had been my closest connection to my parents. I don’t know. All I know is that a part of my soul died with him, and I’ve carried around a hunk of dead tissue in my heart ever since.”

His eyes flick up to mine, and we hold one another’s gaze for a long moment.

“And then came all those other deaths in rapid succession. Dumbledore . . .” I wince internally, although I don’t think he sees it. I long ago ceased to flinch like a whipped dog at the sound of the old man’s name. “. . . Ron, Seamus, Dean, Ginny, Fred, Molly, Tonks, Remus.”

I nod. I have my own list of names, and he knows it. This is another conversation we’ve had before, but I wait patiently for the explanation. Some way, somehow, this list of War dead has something to do with Harry wanting me to get fucked by other men. I just can’t make the connection.

He takes a long sip and sets his empty snifter on the table. There are only two other couples in the restaurant, and one pair looks like they’re getting ready to leave. We watch each other over the candle’s guttering flame.

“I know what it’s like,” he whispers. I see his jaw clenching and unclenching, and I suddenly realise just how fucking close to the edge we are. I reach for his hand, but he yanks it away when I touch him as though I am made of fire instead of flesh.

“I know what it’s like to be left behind. I cannot bear . . . no, I cannot _allow_ you to ever feel that way.” His eyes fill with tears, and he swallows hard, trying to keep them from spilling over. “I would die a thousand times over, the most agonising, gruesome death imaginable, if, in exchange, I could be assured that you will never feel alone.”

I clear my throat and take a sip of water.

“I just want to make sure I understand what you’re saying, Harry,” I say, trying to infuse my voice, my every gesture, with infinite care and gentleness. “You’re saying that if I am having sex with other people and you die, then I won’t feel left behind?”

He nods and then drops his face into his hands.

“It sounds stupid,” he mutters. “Hearing you say it like that. But it doesn’t _feel_ stupid. To me, it makes sense. Maybe not perfect sense, but it does make sense.”

I reach for one of his hands, and this time he lets me take it. “I’m not saying it’s stupid. And I’m certainly not saying you’re stupid for thinking it. I’m just restating what I hear you saying to me. And all I want to know is, did I understand you correctly?”

He nods into his hand. He can’t bring himself to look at me.

“After the War, sex was the only thing that made me feel alive,” he says. “Fucking and getting fucked was the only thing that made sense, the only way I felt connected to other human beings. And if I hadn’t had that outlet, I have no doubt I would have offed myself within a month of offing Voldemort.”

He raises his head.

“But you understand this,” he says. “You always have. Because you’re the same way.”

I nod. “Yes, with some minor variances perhaps, but, yes.”

“Then you should understand why it terrifies me to think that that form of . . . respite . . . might be lost to you if . . . if . . .”

He falters, squeezing my fingers to the point of pain. I wait.

“This is where I need to stop talking,” he whispers. His eyes are filling with the same panic I’d glimpsed last night. “I’m sorry. Please understand.”

My heart is pounding, and for a fleeting moment, I consider using _Legilimency_ on him. But he’d know, and it would be an unforgivable violation of trust.

“You’re asking a lot of me, Harry,” I say. “You _do_ know that?”

“I know,” he says, an apology clear from his tone. “I know, and I’m sorry.”

We sit in silence.

“Where do we go from here?” I ask at last.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he exhales.

“The only question I can answer is where I would like us to go.”

“All right then. Where would you like us to go?”

“I would like it if we . . . if we got married,” he says.

I don’t try to conceal either my surprise or my scepticism.

“I have no idea what to say to that, Harry. Until three hours ago, I didn’t even know we were monogamous. And now you’re mentioning the M-word. We’ve never even tried _living_ together . . .”

“You asked me what I would _like_ ,” he snaps. “Not what I think will actually happen.”

His hurt is visible in his face, and I feel my heart clench in regret.

“Are you _actually_ asking me, then?”

“Am I actually asking you to marry me?” His eyes fill with anguish and unshed tears. “Damn it, Draco!”

“Well, _are_ you?”

I’m frightened by his tone and frustrated by the obliqueness of his words. Fear and frustration have never been a good combination for me. I squeeze his fingers until I see him wince.

“Well?”

“I can’t,” he whispers, letting the agony he feels bleed into his voice. “Not yet. Not now.”

I let go of his hand and reach for my coat. “Fine. Let’s revisit this little discussion later, then. Whenever it suits your mood.”

“Draco. Please don’t do this.”

I look down into his face, and my hands freeze, my coat half unbuttoned. His eyes are pleading with mine in a way I have never seen before.

“I’m asking you,” he says. “I’m _begging_ you.”

We stand at an impasse. _En manège_. A _corps de face_. Our eyes lock. We are perfectly matched, perfectly balanced, and perfectly capable of annihilating one another with one ill-chosen word.

“Let’s go back to the flat,” I say at last and drop my gaze, signalling my surrender.

“All right.” His voice is scratchy with fatigue.

We pay our bill and walk back to the little park we’d Apparated to. My pulse is still uneven and my heart heavy with a nameless dread. He takes my arm.

“Wait!” I say.

He looks at me questioningly.

“Just for a couple minutes. We shouldn’t Apparate like this.”

He simply nods.

“Hold me,” I whisper. “Will you? Please?”

Without a word, he pulls me into his arms, and we bury our faces against each other’s necks. I inhale deeply, trying desperately to calm myself. He is solid and warm in my arms, and his breath smells sweetly of _konyak_. Through his hair and the thinly spaced trees, I can just make out a few brightly lit windows in the surrounding apartment buildings. They cast squares of light onto the snow, shadowed by the patterns of their cheap, transparent curtains. Behind me, the sound of laughter and voices speaking Russian echoes from the street. But here, in this unremarkable little park, there is only the quiet of falling snow.

“I love you,” I say.

I feel him nod his head. His voice is muffled in my collar.

“I know.”

“Good,” I say. And then again, just for emphasis. “Good.”

* * * *

Harry falls asleep in my arms.

We’re lying on our sides, both of us facing the windows. I press kiss after kiss against his shoulder blades, each knob of his spine. There is a dusting of freckles on his back. They’re relatively new. When first I saw the pale curve of his neck, those shoulders with their lean muscle and angular bone, his skin had been without mark. Save those of a self-inflicted and temporary nature. But the years have brought changes. I trace my fingertips from one freckle to another, as though they’re Braille, as though I could read in them whatever it is that he is hiding from me.

Part of me had wanted to laugh at what he’d told me tonight. How ludicrous to think that blow jobs from strangers could lull a heart shattered by loss! How ridiculous to believe that I could be soothed by an anonymous shag when the bed I went home to every night was empty and cold without him! If it is too painful _now_ to let another man touch me, what would it be like if he were gone? Just the mere thought of it makes me ill.

But I hadn’t laughed. The look in his eyes, the plea in his voice had stopped me. However illogical it sounds, clearly the thought of me finding solace in another man’s touch is a comfort to him. And if I stand back and look at it from a distance, I might see the selflessness and generosity involved. It isn’t a wish I share with him, though. The thought of him giving himself to another man is anything but a comfort to me. In fact, it’s been a source of torment for years. But then again, I’ve never seriously thought about my own death. In the years since that night in Berlin, I have been obsessed with living, not dying. It was one of his many gifts to me . . . .

Suddenly a thought freezes my blood. Maybe that’s it, the last remaining chasm between us. Harry has never stopped wondering why he isn’t dead. He’s never stopped thinking, in his heart-of-hearts, that he doesn’t deserve to live. He no longer harbours the death wish that led him to corpse that night I found him in that seedy London club. The night he’d nearly had his brains fucked out. Literally. Or at least not the same _kind_ of death wish. I know, and have known since we got together, that he doesn’t partake anymore in risky sex. Neither of us would dream of doing even so much as fuck or suck without a condom, let alone engage in any of our less mainstream erotic proclivities, with anyone but each other. Had I’d let myself believe that his courtship of death had ended when, in fact, it had merely switched shape and focus? After all, what is his job if not a death wish with a salary? Nine squad members have died over the years. Nine out of a group, which, at its largest, consists of no more than fifteen witches and wizards at a time. And that figure doesn’t include the number that have been injured. Harry himself has been - quite seriously, too. Hence the six-week break and our longest stint of uninterrupted cohabitation.

I close my eyes and inhale the scent of his skin. My hand is splayed against his bare chest, rising and falling with his every breath. Those six weeks had been . . . well . . . heaven. They had been heaven. I’d been surprised by how quickly we’d fallen into a comfortable routine. I moved into his Kensington flat and was able to Floo to the Academy’s offices in Diagon Alley, which made for the shortest and easiest commute I’ve ever had. It’d been May and early June, and we’d set up a little table on the balcony, sitting out there when the weather was fine with our coffee and papers in the morning. And every evening, I’d return to the sometimes inedible, but always appreciated, home-cooked meal. My memories of that time are filled with laughter. Harry’s laughter in the kitchen. Both of us laughing whenever we shared the woefully cramped little shower. The laughter of our few, but dearly loved, friends over a couple of bottles of Montrose and cartons of take-away curry . . .

But then all too soon there’d been the Helsinki assignment. And then Cluj-Napoca and Sienna in rapid succession. I can still remember with teeth-aching clarity that first morning after he’d left. I hadn’t wanted to leave the Kensington flat and go back to the Manor. Not while I could still smell him on the sheets, and the roses he’d bought me were still only tightly wrapped buds. But how I’d regretted that decision when I woke to rain on the windows and an acre’s worth of cold bed beside me! It was then that I’d discovered that missing him had a _taste_. Heavy and dense. Like charcoal or wet ashes.

He stirs and sighs in my arms. I nudge my knee between his legs and slide it up until my groin is pressed seamlessly along the curve of his bottom. The tender weight of his scrotum rests comfortably against the support of my thigh. I slide my hand down to his belly and comb my fingers into the coarse hair at the base of his penis, feeling him stiffen just enough to sweeten his dreams but not enough to wake him. I kiss his neck and let myself drift as though the mattress is a raft at sea, and all that exists is the two of us. Alone together, with nowhere else to be.


	3. Chapter 3

I wake in the full light of morning, and Harry is gone again.

Sighing resignedly, I pat his pillow, looking for the inevitable note. All it says is, _Meeting with Neville. Be back soon._ The brevity of the missive can mean only one of two things: Either he was in a rush or he’s hacked off at me. Given last night’s conversation, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter.

I shower and dress, trying not to think about the fact that this is our last day together, and that by this time tomorrow he’ll be back in Irkutsk, and I’ll be . . . Hell, who knows where I’ll be? Either at the Manor or the Kensington flat or, if I’m feeling particularly masochistic, here in this empty flat made all the more empty by his absence. After all, nine a.m. in St. Petersburg is six a.m. in England. Too early even for the most diehard of my fellow frequenters of the Bodleian Library.

Eventually I wander into the little kitchen. At least he made coffee before he left – a sure sign that he can’t be _that_ hacked off. Pouring myself a cup, I manage to slosh about half of it on to the counter and begin a rather half-hearted search for a cloth. I have my doubts that one exists, but I continue looking anyway, if for no other reason than to confirm my suspicion. At the back of one of the cabinets, I discover a stack of photographs. I pull them out and flip through them. Most are of me. Some were obviously taken when we were together, and a few even show the two of us. In one photograph, we’re sitting at an outdoor table with Longbottom and Granger. There’s an empty wine bottle by the bread basket and another bottle at my elbow that looks only about half full. Harry is leaning back in his chair, his ankle balanced on his knee and his shirt collar open. His arm is draped over my shoulders, and he throws back his head in laughter. It must be at something I’ve just said because I watch my lips move and then try, unsuccessfully, to suppress a smile. Granger is frowning, so it must have been something risqué. Longbottom, however, looks privately amused, and I watch as he squeezes Granger’s hand secretly under the table. Behind us, a hot orange sun is setting beyond hills dotted with olive trees, and the flower pots on the stone wall overflow with lavender. Ah. Must be from that weekend the four of us spent in San Gimignano after the squad’s work in Sienna wrapped up. A breeze lifts Harry’s dark hair and causes Granger to grab at a paper napkin threatening to blow off the terrace. Even I can interpret the look in Harry’s face in that moment. In the photograph, my attention has been distracted by Granger’s sudden movement, and I don’t see the tender fire in his eyes. But sitting here on the cold tile floor in St. Petersburg, I can see it clearly, and it feels like an epiphany. A lump lodges itself in my throat, and I close my eyes, letting my head fall back and rest against the cabinet door.

Other than the photographs of me or the both of us together, there are about three dozen of various squad members, and every one of them contains at least one dead person. Cafolla with his long dark hair and round glasses, like the pair Harry wore at school, winking mischievously at the camera and leaning nonchalantly on Longbottom’s shoulder. Hooper, her elfin features wrinkling in laughter, and her blond hair pulling loose from its ponytail as she playfully punches a sour-faced Nott in the arm. Cahill, wearing a grimy, stretched-out Dublin Dugbogs t-shirt and looking like a long-lost Weasley, glaring at the photographer who’d obviously woken him from a surreptitious nap. Gwynn, in the midst of another dramatic narration, wearing a bespoke Caraceni suit and ostentatious gold cufflinks, gesticulating theatrically with a glass of port balanced in one hand and a Gurkha Black Dragon Edición Especial in the other. Jones, looking like a young McGonagall, her glasses balanced on the end of her nose and a stack of books on the floor beside the cosy-looking armchair she’s sitting in. Kind, generous, rotund Davis, smiling sweetly, his shirt, as always, unbuttoned too far and his unruly chest hair tumbling forth like an untended verge. Evseev dead-panning for the camera, only an arch of an eyebrow betraying his amusement and his evident fondness for the photographer. Foley, dark-haired and green-eyed, challenging Harry to another game of chess. Everyone had remarked how much like a sister she’d looked to him . . .

I put the photographs back where I found them, suddenly acutely aware of why Harry must have been hidden them away in the first place. Although why the ones of me – of us – are with them . . . ? I press the heels of my palms against my eyes until I see dancing spots of coloured light. It’s as though he’s already consigned us to the annals of the dead. Us, or _himself_. 

 

When he returns, I’m leaning against the casement of the middle window, watching three men in the alley below standing ankle-deep in slushy snow, trying to manoeuvre a grand piano through a doorway.

“Reason number seven thousand, five hundred and thirty-two why I’m glad I’m not a Muggle,” I say. “Come here and look at this.”

He pulls off his boots and walks over silently on sock-clad feet. As soon as he’s near enough, he slips his arms around my waist, and I feel my heart lighten when I realise he’s not angry at me. He buries his nose in my hair, inhaling deeply. But beneath the affectionate surface of his embrace, his touch is not gentle. 

“Hhmm, you smell good.”

“Hey,” I say in mock exasperation. “You’re not looking at what these ridiculous Muggles are trying to do.”

“They’re moving a piano.”

“How do you know?” I sniff. “You haven’t even looked.”

“I saw them on my way in.”

“Ah, I see. So, you’re already up on all the news . . .”

“I don’t know about news.” His voice growls low in his throat, and his words fall hot and damp against my neck, sending shivers straight to my cock. “But I’m certainly up.”

He presses his hips forward so that I cannot help but feel the heat of his erection through the cloth of his jeans and my trousers.

I turn in his arms and wrap mine around his neck. How long have you had that hard-on, Potter?”

“Since I woke and felt yours nudging my arse,” he says, nipping at my mouth. “Malfoy.”

“Mmmm, I was having such a lovely dream.” My words are no more than a murmur against his lips, and I can feel the hum of their vibration. He groans and opens his mouth, letting me kiss him deep and wet, while his hands drop to my arse and squeeze possessively.

“Who was it about?” he rasps.

“You, of course, you twat.”

He laughs portentously, leaning back in my arms. “Fancy another late breakfast/early lunch? Neville seems adept at picking cafés with week-old pastries.”

“All right,” I say, hesitating at the unexpected 180-degree turn in the conversation. “But I’m going to have to change into something warmer before we go out.”

“I’m beginning . . .” he pauses to dispense a bruising kiss. “. . . to think . . . that you . . .” Another kiss. “. . . don’t get dressed appropriately the first time on purpose.”

I arch an eyebrow at him. “And?”

“I’m just making an observation.”

I rest my palms against his chest, feeling his nipples harden beneath the cloth of his shirt. He looks handsome and wind-swept, and in desperate need of a fuck. I pull him towards me with no intention of releasing him.

The kiss is unhurried and thorough, and I lull myself into believing that I am calming him, soothing the ferocity of his embrace. I smooth my tongue along the wet velvet that is the inside of his cheeks, trying to touch and taste everywhere I can reach. He hums in his throat and opens his mouth wider, tilting his head to give me better access. His hands have moved from my arse to splay against the small of my back. I feel his fingertips dip beneath the waistband of my trousers and close my eyes, committing myself completely to the moment, to this kiss. My body relaxes against his, holding nothing back. When he pulls away, his eyes are heavy-lidded with lust.

“Maybe if you’re planning on changing into something warmer . . . ,” he murmurs suggestively.

I step back and start to undo the buttons of my shirt. He watches, his eyes blazing dangerously as each button slips through its hole and the skin beneath is revealed in an ever-widening “V.” When my shirt finally hangs open, he reaches out to place his palms on my chest, slipping his fingertips into my armpits. I lean forward to kiss him again and feel the hunger roiling just beneath the surface of his skin.

“Do you know?” he asks, his voice husky. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“If it’s anything like what you do to me, then the answer is ‘yes,’” I reply.

“Good,” he growls menacingly, and suddenly I know what’s coming. My every muscle tenses in anticipation, and I feel my heart rate increase twofold in excitement and suddenly painful arousal. I know he can sense my need for him.

He pushes my shirt down my arms, and I barely have time to unbutton the cuffs and let it fall to the floor before he reaches for my belt buckle and wrenches it open.

“I want you on your elbows and knees with your arse in the air,” he rasps against my ear before inflicting a savage bite on my earlobe, rolling the silver stud I wear between his teeth.

My heart lurches, and I reach for his belt buckle. He swats my hand away.

“I didn’t give you permission to undress me, now did I?” he murmurs, and the sound of his voice goes straight to my groin.

He undoes my fly and shoves my trousers down past my knees. I kick them off and stand naked before him in the cold grey light. His eyes appraise me from head to foot, his gaze as measured as the blows he plans to mete out. My cock is swollen and fully stiff, standing straight out in front of me, and as he stands watching, a thick pearl of pre-ejaculate oozes from the slit, hangs for a moment and then falls to the floor.

“On your knees and clean that up,” he says, tender but commanding. Even if I were so inclined, I know this is no time to argue. I kneel and reach for my discarded shirt.

“Not with that,” he says, nudging my shirt out my reach with his toe. “With your tongue.”

I flash him the patented Malfoy smirk, and I know my face is suddenly transformed into the face of my haughty twelve year-old self, standing before him, wand out and ready to duel, because he groans raggedly, deep in his throat.

“ _Now_ , Malfoy,” he growls.

I know _exactly_ what it will do to him when the flat of my tongue finally makes contact with the gleaming wood, so I draw it out with excruciating slowness, placing my hands firmly and deliberately. His eyes are on fire, and I hold them as I lower my head and open my mouth, wetting my lips with my tongue.

“Ah _fuck!_ ” he groans and wrenches his fly open, shoving a hand down the front of his jeans. 

At last, I lower my gaze and lean all the way over to press the length of my tongue to the floor, tasting wood and varnish and my own bitter wetness. I hear boards creak as he walks.

“Don’t miss any of it,” he says from behind me, and I know he’s getting a five-star view of the crack of my arse. The spot is long gone, but I keep licking like he asked. My only thought is of pleasing him, of making him see that he can get me to do anything . . . _anything_ . . . he asks.

The blow shocks me when it lands, and I feel my prick jerk, leaving a wet smear on my belly. I hear myself cry out, the sound reverberating in the all-but-empty flat. I turn my face, pressing my burning cheek to the cool damp wood and spread my legs wider.

“That is for dirtying my floor without asking my permission,” he says, evenly.

He doesn’t give me time to recover before I feel a second open-palmed slap on my other buttock. My hips buck with the impact, and I hear another wet splatter. I’m pretty sure that if he strikes me again without letting me recover that I’m going to come.

“And _that_ is for what I told Neville this morning.”

I scarcely register his words, let alone form an inquiry as to their meaning, when I hear him drop heavily to his knees behind me and feel him grab my arse in his hands. The commandeering mood must have passed as quickly as it had come, because the growl is replaced by a whimper and a sound that could be a sob as he licks and sucks and fucks me with his tongue. He eats me with such raw abandon that I feel my balls tense with every spasm in my rectum. He spreads my arse as open as possible, pressing his thumbs on either side of the rim of my anus, opening me until his fat wet tongue slips in without resistance. My forearms are braced on the floor, fingers splayed wide, as I struggle for the leverage to push back. All I can hear is my own breath, panting wildly in my ears, and the wet squelch of his ardent mouth against my arse. At least that’s all I hear at first, but holding my breath for a moment I swear that I hear something else. Muffled sobbing. I freeze.

“Harry? . . .” I say tentatively. And when he doesn’t stop or respond I repeat it.“Harry?”

At last he tears himself away and reaches for his glasses, shoving them on to the bridge of his nose in an obvious gesture of irritation.

“Damn it, Draco!” he half-sobs, half-pants. “Can’t you just let me make you come in peace? What the hell is it with you and this newfound inquisitiveness anyway?”

I glare at him over my shoulder. He’s still on his knees with both hands still spreading my arse apart.

“Newfound inquisitiveness?” I snarl. “What the hell is it with you dropping thunderbolts on me out of the clear blue sky?”

“I hardly think _you_ have any right to talk to me about ‘dropping thunderbolts’ after what you did the other night!”

Ouch. I wrench myself out of his grasp and flop down on the floor. I’d been on the verge of coming, and my erection throbs painfully, trapped as it now is between my body and the unforgiving wood planks.

He rocks back on to his heels and draws his sleeve across his mouth. “Shit,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He inhales shakily and braces his hands on his thighs, staring down at me. I notice the wet spot near the waist band of his jeans and groan in frustration.

“Usually my talking during sex doesn’t have this kind of effect,” he says, waving his hand in a self-depreciating gesture.

We’re on unfamiliar ground, and we both know it.

I roll onto my back, and his eyes drop from my face to the dark splotches on my chest to the angry red of my tortured prick. I know he can see how far gone I was, how close to orgasm. He looks back at my face, his lip caught between his teeth in apology.

“What is it you told Neville this morning?” I say levelly.

He actually tries to physically dodge the question by rising suddenly to his feet and pacing to the other side of the room. He turns and stares back at me stubbornly, his hands crammed in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up to his ears. Every inch of his body screams out fight or flight, but I refuse to let him off the hook. Lying naked on my back in the middle of his barren flat, my hair fanned out around my head on the dark wood of the floor, I wait for him to answer me.

“Draco, don’t,” he groans and sinks into a crouch, balancing on the balls of his feet and putting his face in his hands, pushing his glasses onto the top of his head. As if that could shield him from my gaze. _As if_.

I wait. He digs his fingers into his hair. I continue to wait. He drops his hands and replaces his glasses, fixing pleading eyes on mine.

“You brought it up,” I say.

He punches his thigh in frustration and stands.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” he says, pacing in front of the enormous marble fireplace.

Finally he stops and looks at me. I haven’t moved. “Aren’t you freezing?” he asks gently.

“Don’t try and distract me, Potter.”

He gives a derisive snort. “I gave up trying to do _that_ ages ago,” he says.

I don’t answer him. I know that this seeming capitulation is merely a ruse to draw me into a conversation, thereby achieving through the backdoor what he can’t through the front.

At last, he returns and sits cross-legged on the floor beside me, twirling a finger in my hair and frowning at it as though it’s a particularly complex Arithmancy problem. He lets out a deep sigh. “I told him that after Mefodiy I’m through.”

Time slows ominously as he continues combing his fingers through my hair, his blunt fingernails catching on the raised boards underneath.

“Through with what?” I ask quietly.

“Through with this,” he says with a dismissive gesture at his flat as though it stood in as proxy for the last ten years of his life. “Through with freezing my arse off in wind-bitten cities within spitting distance of the Arctic Circle; through with eating every meal out of a cardboard carton; through with sitting on the floor every night because the thought of buying a chair makes me miss you so much I can barely breathe.”

He removes his glasses and drops his head into his hands again, scrubbing at his face and dragging his fingers through his hair.

“You told him you were quitting the squad?”

He nods.

I roll on to my side and rest a hand on his knee. “Why?”

“For all the reasons I just said,” he snaps, but I know his tone isn’t directed at me.

“The freezing and the take-away and the furniture,” I say, “none of that is new. Why now?”

He just looks at me, and I sense he may not know the answer, let alone be able to tell it to me.

“Is it what I said the other night?” I ask after several moments of awkward silence. “What we talked about last night?”

“No. Yes. Maybe . . . Oh, I don’t know!” He groans and drops his head into his hands again.

“If I had known . . . ,” I begin.

“. . . you still would have told me anyway because that’s how things fucking are with us.”

I can think of nothing to say in response to that. After all, he’s right. So instead, I reach for his hand and weave my fingers through his. He squeezes them in answer.

“But you love doing this.”

He snorts derisively. “Yeah. I love standing for hours outside some shit-hole warehouse freezing my balls off in a fucking September snowstorm. I love having to bite my tongue in half to keep from screaming every secret I possess when another Voldemort-in-training _Crucios_ me for twenty minutes. I love watching my closest friends cast Glamours at their faces for an hour, trying to disguise themselves so they can infiltrate the ranks of some sadistic fucker’s army of zombie dead. Yeah, I love it all right.”

Everything he says is true, but so are a thousand other things he hasn’t mentioned. Like the heart-pounding rush of surprising an enemy, vulnerable and unprepared; like the breathless strategising until two in the morning with the sharpest, most ruthlessly cunning minds of the wizarding world. Like the hours of talking and laughing and eating and drinking and just plain shooting the shit. The squad is more than family to him, and this life – fraught with danger and hardship though it may be – is what delivered him from the knife’s edge of suicide I’d found him on all those years ago. Though it may be a death wish, this job also gives him meaning and purpose.

“You don’t have to go through with it,” I say, stroking my thumb over his knuckles. “If it’s what you need to think to get you through this fucking thing with Mefodiy, that’s fine. This has been the worst one yet, and I’m sure Longbottom knows the pressure you’ve been under. I’m sure he understands . . .”

“You don’t get it, do you?” he says, fixing me with a heated stare. “You don’t get it. I’m not going to change my mind. It’s through. _I’m_ through.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you see, Draco? I don’t want this,” he gestures once again at his flat. “I want _this_.”

He takes my hand in both of his, uncurling my fingers and pressing my palm against his heart. His eyes never leave mine, and I can feel his pulse beneath his shirt. It feels steady and strong and _sure_.

“Don’t you see how long I’ve been running?” he whispers, his eyes pleading with mine. “How _tired_ I am?”

I swallow around the lump in my throat, and he presses my hand even closer to his heart.

“I don’t want anything else anymore. I don’t _need_ anything else.”

I seize his shirt in my fist and drag him down to me, grabbing his head and holding his face between my palms. He doesn’t blink as he looks into my eyes, and I _know_ what he sees there, what he can’t _help_ but see. An earth’s age of waiting. Waiting for him to say those five simple words.

“I don’t need anything else,” he repeats in a whisper. “Only you.”

I bring our mouths together so hard I taste blood. He sobs in relief and returns my fevered kiss. I drive my tongue into his mouth and press my hands against his shoulders, rolling him on to his back so that I’m on top of him, straddling him. His hands find my hips, and he holds me steady as he thrusts up between my thighs, but I can’t stop kissing him, even to take a breath. It’s as though my heart might stop if I do, just seize up in my chest, lurching and stuttering to a standstill. I kiss him with all that I’m worth.

“Oh, I need you,” he moans into my mouth.

I grab the bottom of his shirt and haul it off over his head. The static makes his hair stand on end and causes a shock when our lips touch. We giggle like children. His dusky nipples look all the darker for the contrast with the pallor of his skin, and I think fleetingly that I’ve never seen him so pale. I seize his wrists and pin them over his head, noticing the bone-china translucency of his arms and their pale blue veins. He has never before looked so beautiful to me as he does in this moment, and I hear myself gasp out loud. There is something so achingly vulnerable about him that all I want is to cradle and shelter him in my arms. I lower my head and kiss the line of his jaw, nuzzling under his chin and getting him to tilt back his head and offer me the pale arc of his throat.

I want to make him come. I want to watch the momentary panic in his eyes as he balances on the edge, afraid to fall, but even more afraid not to. I climb off him and unbutton his jeans. He helps me, lifting his hips off the floor and pushing his jeans down and kicking them off. His eyes catch mine, and I see the question in them. There’s no script for this. Neither of us is on top or on bottom. We’re both of us equally lost.

I crawl between his raised knees, and he watches intently as I lower my head and take his cock in my mouth. The sigh that escapes him is the longest single breath I’ve ever heard. I slide my tongue around the glans, pushing back the foreskin and sucking a heady-tasting bead of pre-come from his slit. My mouth is so hungry for him that this smallest taste floods it with saliva that soon flows down his shaft and puddles where my fingers are gripped in a tight ring. I can feel the thick vein running the length of the underside of his penis throb plaintively against my tongue.

“Draco!” he gasps and tugs at my hair, and after a couple more gliding strokes up and down the entire length of him, I release him from my mouth.

It’s obvious that he was literally within seconds of coming because he groans and arches his back as his cock spasms in a dry orgasm.

“Oh God,” he moans helplessly. “Oh God. Draco. Please.”

I straddle his hips, but when I reach behind me and take him in hand to guide him to my arse, he nearly comes again, and I have to let him go. In fact, there is so much wetness on his prick - and judging by its viscosity, most of it not my spit - that I worry he’s had one of those half-committed orgasms that leaves you even more frustrated than not having come at all.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry,” I whisper as he pulls me down into his arms. “I didn’t realise you were that close.”

He just shakes his head. “I’m all right,” he pants. “I didn’t come yet. Just give me a second, okay?”

I chuckle into his neck. “We’re both off our game, aren’t we?” I kiss his ear. “It’s as though this is the first time we’ve ever fucked.”

He groans. “Keep talking like that, and I will come.” 

He swallows, trying to catch his breath. “Merlin, Draco. What would I give to have had your virgin arse? Or even better, ride your virgin cock? Every Galleon in my vault and every other that I could beg, steal, or borrow. I bet you tasted like soap and talcum powder, and I bet your balls were so snug and tight I could have put them both in my mouth, no fuss. You must’ve been pretty as a picture when you were horny, and I’ll bet your little hole was tight enough to cut off the circulation in the tip of my bloody pinky finger.”

I laugh. “I wasn’t _that_ small and delicate,” I say. “I think there’s some serious historical revisionism going on here. Are you talking about the same quote-unquote ‘ferret-faced git’ who came damn close to kicking your arse on the Quidditch pitch on more than one occasion?”

“Sublimated lust,” he gasps. “A classic case.”

“You’re using polysyllabic words,” I say. “Does that mean I can touch your dick now?”

He laughs and pulls me into his arms, wrapping them around me until there is not even a sliver of space between us. “I am so happy. I’ve never _been_ so happy . . .” He kisses my ear and lets me pull away and look in his eyes.

“Good,” I say, grinning unguardedly. “It’s about time.”

“I’ll be even happier, though, when I’m buried in your arse. Turn around and let me pick up where I left off earlier.”

I smile and peck him on the cheek.

“Nope, sorry. _I_ want to pick up where _I_ left off the other night.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I want you in me with no preparation.”

He groans.

“I’m serious, Harry,” I say. “I want you to know what it feels like. I haven’t been fucked in over three months, and that’s the longest I’ve gone without a cock in my arse since I was nineteen.”

He groans again and lays a hand over his eyes. “Draco . . .”

“You know, the last time I tried, I couldn’t even get a decent sized dildo in me,” I continue. “Give me a couple more weeks and you might have that pinky strangling . . .”

“Draco.”

I still, suddenly worried that I’ve pushed it too far. “Yes?”

“Why?”

I sigh. “Honestly?”

“Please.”

“It’s really like I told you. It was right after I got back from visiting you here that first time, after our week at the Astoria. I went to one of my usual haunts – in Amsterdam, I think it was. Anyway, this lovely blue-eyed boy was buying me drinks, and since I’d gone there to get off, I didn’t complain when he got under the table . . .”

“But?”

“But as soon as I felt him take my dick out . . . .” I stop because I’m not sure how to explain what it is that I’d felt in that moment.

“Go on.”

“I don’t know.” I’m rarely at a loss for words, and I know I have his complete undivided attention. “It just felt . . . _wrong_ somehow. And not just a little wrong, but really _really_ wrong. I made him stop. I just couldn’t bear it.”

“But it had to do with me?”

“Yes. It had everything to do with you. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was your face, and when he touched me, it was just all wrong. His hands weren’t yours.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I give an amused snort. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we? Probably one of the only couples in the world for whom monogamy requires an apology.”

“What are you going to do now?” he asks. “And don’t tell me you’re going celibate because I won’t fucking believe it. You’re sexually voracious.”

“And you’re one to talk. What do you mean ‘what am I going to do?’” I ask, feeling even more amused. “I’m going to wank like normal people.”

He laughs. “Well, not if I have anything to say about it!”

He _Accioes_ the lube and reaches between my thighs to coat his cock.

“What? You’re going to make my hand off-limits?” I ask incredulously. “So let me get this straight: you’re fine with me fucking other blokes, but you don’t want me fucking my own hand?”

“No, you silly twat,” he says affectionately. “What I meant is if I have anything to say about it, you won’t need blue-eyed cocksuckers _or_ that clever hand of yours because I’ll be there where I fucking belong and can take care of you myself.”

My heart catches in my throat, and I lean over to kiss him. He takes advantage of my distraction to slide a slick finger along my crack and press it into my arse.

“Uh-uh. No finger.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says.

“Since when?” I smirk.

“I’m serious,” he whispers. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not today.”

“And those slaps on my arse were what again? Love pats?”

“Well, they were done out of love . . .”

“I know they were,” I reply soothingly.

“I was upset,” he says. “And now I’m not anymore.”

“You won’t hurt me. At least not in the way you’re worried about.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” I sigh and balance myself on the taut swollen head of his cock. He reaches around me to spread my arse cheeks. “Just give me a minute, though, to get used to you. Don’t start thrusting yet.”

“I’ll go as slow as you need me to,” he says, and I wonder fleetingly if this is what it would have been like if, instead of casting Dark spells and Unforgivables, we’d rolled each other in the tall grass by the lake under a cloudless sky.

I close my eyes and let gravity do its job. He’s so wet and so hard that the head of his penis slips into me with little resistance. But then the ridge of his foreskin connects with the rim of my hole, and the pain blooms in my body like a rose opening to the sun. It is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever felt, and I moan so that he can share it with me. I sink farther and for a moment think that I will tear, but then my body adapts, remembers the feel of him filling me, and I relax, sheathing him like a custom-tailored glove. I let my mind drift, let myself experience the pressure and my body’s resistance to it as I sink slowly lower, impaling myself on his glorious cock. How strange it is, the loneliness of the human soul. Left untouched, my body has curled in on itself, like a foetus or a corpse. I have not expanded in my solitude but contracted. My body is less generous than it once was.

“Does it hurt?” he whispers, and I open my eyes.

“No,” I whisper back, but it’s not the truth. It _does_ hurt. Just not in the way he imagines.

“Draco,” he groans. “You’re so tight.”

The seal between us is so perfect that I can feel every twitch of his cock. I can even feel it sway ever so slightly in time with his breathing and the beating of his heart.

“You’re so beautiful.” He’s stroking my sides, my back, my arse. “So _fucking_ beautiful.”

I’m almost there. I can feel the tight curls of his pubic hair tickle the underside of my balls.

“I remember,” he whispers. “I remember watching you one afternoon. It must’ve been the week before exams because it was gorgeous out, and Hermione had all her fucking books with her. We were sitting in the courtyard, and I saw you . . .”

At last I come to rest with nowhere else to go. He moans and squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the spasms deep in my body. So deep I would swear he’s breached my intestines.

“ . . . I saw you. You were sitting with the Slytherins, and you were laughing.”

I look at him, waiting. “And?”

“And nothing.”

“That’s it? I was laughing?”

“That’s it.”

I close my eyes and swallow back the sting of tears. It’s silly after all. Silly that a man nearing forty would shed tears for his adolescent self and for what might have been. Things happen for a reason, and surely there was a reason for the unbridgeable chasm that lay between those two boys, sitting in a sunny courtyard with unopened school books in their bags and Chocolate Frogs melting in the pockets of their robes . . .

“Draco.”

He breathes my name, calling me back from the past.

I lean forward and plant my forearms on either side of his head. He reaches up for a kiss, but I back away. He relents, resting his head on the floor, and lets me take my time. I remove his glasses, folding them carefully and setting them aside. His eyes, without the barrier of glass, look even greener but also oddly vulnerable. As though I’ve just removed a barricade to his soul. His lashes are long and coal-black. There are creases at the corners of his eyes, and I kiss them softly, feeling his lashes brush against my lips. I trace both eyebrows with the tip of my tongue. How I love them! My own are so pale as to be almost invisible. But his are so dramatic, so expressive. They frame the fire of his eyes and contrast so vividly with his pale skin. He can never lie; his eyebrows give him away. They are proud, haughty, defiant. Challenging the world to engage with him, to take him on . . .

He moves his hips beneath me, hungry for friction and release. I brace my hands on the floor and press back, feeling him slip even deeper into my body. He groans, squeezing his eyes shut, and I take the opportunity to shift my attention to his mouth. His lips are full and red, not thin and pink like mine. They’re perfect really. Masculine without being ungenerous. Sensual without being self-consciously voluptuous. His mouth turns down ever so slightly at each corner, but there are laugh lines there too. I trace the bow of his upper lip with my tongue and then nip at his bottom lip. He gasps deliciously, and I feel his cock jerk. His lips are sugar-sweet and softer than velvet, and I am a starving man. I pull the achingly full bloom of his lower lip into my mouth, running my tongue between supple skin and teeth.

“Oh god, Draco,” he mumbles against my mouth. His hands slide up the length of my back to cup my face, the tips of his fingers cradling my ears. “You . . . you . . . ,”

But whatever it is that he wants to say, I will never know. I open my mouth, spreading his lips with mine, and draw the breath from his lungs. His back arches off the floor, as though I’m pulling his soul from his body. His hands tighten their grip and hold me firmly against his mouth. I feel him giving himself to me. Surrendering. Relinquishing the last remnants of control. I accept his invitation and curl my tongue around his, twisting my head until our faces are almost perpendicular to each other. And at the same time, I start to move, slowly, deliberately, riding his cock.

He moans into our kiss, opening his mouth even wider. I arch my spine. The muscles in my back are lithe and strong, and I move fluidly, sinuously, pumping my hips in a steady rhythm designed to give him maximum contact and pleasure. His tongue is fat and hot in my mouth, and I feel that I could lose myself in this kiss, never to emerge again. His orgasm is close. I can smell it in the incremental increases in the heat radiating from his body. I can feel it in the lurching throbs of his cock. I pull away from his mouth, watching a strand of saliva lengthen and break. His eyes entreat mine, pleading, supplicating. I push back and rise to my knees. As I do so, I relax my thighs, my belly, my back. I am his to use as he wishes. He feels the change in my body and seizes the reins once again. His hands grasp my sides, bruising the skin over my hipbones. 

The potency and strength that I feel as his body surges beneath mine steals my breath away. I’m suddenly aware, yet again, that the world’s most powerful wizard is between my thighs and buried to the root in my arse. He steadies my hips and slams up into me. Our eyes lock, and I see in his nothing but the perfect respect of an equal. He is taking his pleasure from me, but I am the one giving it to him. Measure for measure. Thrust for thrust. I meet him halfway every time. I always have. And, if I have anything to say in the matter, I always _will_.

“Draco.”

His eyes roll back until his dark lashes frame nothing but white, and I feel the concussive force of his orgasm deep inside me; it feels as though he’s punched a hole through my soul. I cry out and grasp my own prick, stroking until the semen erupts between my fingers in a blessed fountain of release. My channel convulses against the solid presence of his cock, forcing more ejaculate from me than I swear is possible. I hear myself sobbing his name, over and over and over.

“ _Miliy moy_ ,” he whispers reverently against my ear. I’ve collapsed against his chest, and he’s holding me to him, rocking me gently. “ _Lyubimiy moy. Radost moya_.”

I let out a sob. I am completely broken, and he must be able to feel it because he rolls me on to my back. His penis is softening, but he’s still hard enough to thrust into me. I grip his hips between my thighs and twine my legs around him. The floor is hard and cold beneath me, but I don’t care. All I can feel is Harry.

“Don’t stop!” I gasp. “Don’t go. Oh. _Harry!_ ”

He cradles the base of my skull in his hands and presses his thumbs against my trachea. Incredibly, he’s hard again, and he slams into me. My body’s spasms hadn’t fully ceased before he rolled me on to my back, and I feel them bloom and expand once again. Like a match tip striking a rough surface, my orgasm rekindles. I ride its waves, and he presses his thumbs deeper until I feel my consciousness slip and my eyes roll back in their sockets as his did earlier.

“Let go, Draco,” he pleads in a whisper. “Let go. I’ll catch you. I promise. Just _let go_.”

And I do.

 

As his Owl had indicated, Longbottom is waiting for us beside the Eternal Flame. Harry spots him first in the indigo darkness – a figure with sloping shoulders, but whose height and sombre profile belie any initial impression of weakness. We cross the empty expanse of the Field of Mars, holding our collars closed against a wind straight off the sea. It catches the little remaining snow that has yet to blow from this bleak twenty-acres of defeated grass and Soviet-era concrete, twirling it around in stinging bursts. Somewhere under our feet sleep the fanatic hearts of revolutionaries. But up here among the living, there’s only two dogs alternately fighting and fucking beneath a ridiculous bronze statue of a Muggle general kitted out as the God of War, and the mournful wail of the wind whistling through the trolley wires.

Longbottom has obviously been waiting for a while because he’s struck up a kind of camaraderie with the assortment of drunks and bums warming their hands at the Flame. One even offers Harry and me a brown-bagged bottle as we draw near.

“ _Dobriy vyecher_. Angleeskee,” says the man, pointing at Longbottom, who nods. “Russkee,” he says, pointing at himself.

“Well, that’s illuminating,” I mutter.

“ _Pri-yat-na s vami po-zna-ko-mitsa_ ,” says Harry, shaking the man’s hand. He holds up the bottle again, but Harry shakes his head. “ _Nyet_ ,” he says. “ _Bal'shoye spahseeba_.”

“Harry’s been teaching himself Russian in Irkutsk,” Longbottom tells me, with a nod in Harry’s direction. “How are you, Draco?”

He holds out his hand, and I take it. If he’s angry or upset over Harry’s news from this morning, I cannot see a trace of it in his face.

“I’m doing as well as can be expected,” I reply.

He merely nods.

I glance at Harry. He’s dropped to his haunches beside the man with the bottle, balancing on the balls of his feet and holding out his palms to the Flame like his companion. They appear to be engaged in about as much of a conversation as Harry’s halting Russian will permit, and if it weren’t for the contrast in their dress, one could imagine they’re brothers. Both of them dark-haired, both wearing glasses. Except the vagrant is wrapped in what looks like nothing more than layer upon layer of dirty rags, while Harry is wearing a dinner jacket with silk lapels and a white bow tie and waistcoat. His long charcoal-grey merino coat pools around his feet, and his black patent leather shoes reflect the flickering light.

“This must be very impressive to the Muggles,” I remark conversationally, meaning the seemingly sourceless fire.

Longbottom shrugs. “Given the fluctuations in historical mood and the tourist allure of Tsarist Russia, I’m surprised this monument still exists.” He doesn’t look at me, and although his tone is amiable, the bland neutrality of his remark and his refusal to make eye contact speak volumes. I look at him for a long moment, but he simply stares through the flame at Harry’s face. I sigh resignedly and stroll over to a plaque set in the concrete, brushing away the snow with the toe of my shoe.

“Not such an unfamiliar scenario, is it?” says a voice from behind me. I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath before responding.

“Nott,” I say evenly.

“Malfoy.” His tone is heavy with sarcastic deference.

He moves to stand next to me, reading the plaque with an exaggerated look of concentration on his face.

“ _The year 1917 saw two distinct revolutions in Russia: the overthrow of the Tsarist regime and formation of the Provisional Government, and the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government. The causes of these two revolutions encompass Russia’s political, social, and economic situation. Politically, the people of Russia resented the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II and the corrupt and anachronistic elements in his government of titled aristocrats . . ._ ”

I turn my head to glare at him. “I can read it for myself, thank you.”

He shoots me a look of feigned bafflement. “Why so touchy, Malfoy? It’s just a little piece of . . . ancient history.” He tilts his head and scratches his chin before returning his gaze to the plaque. “Ah! But at least the Bolsheviks knew how to handle _their_ old aristocracy. Says here that ‘ _after being moved numerous times for their own safety, the royal family was finally moved to Yekaterinburg._ ’ Yekaterinburg being a large city in the Ural Mountains,” he adds blithely. “ _After a while the execution squad came in and waited for the call from Moscow. The call eventually came and the family was murdered in the basement of the Ipatiev house on an early July morning._ ” 

I round on him so suddenly that he actually takes a step back, his eyes widening with surprise.

“Is that what you wished had happened, Nott? That someone had given the order to burn the Manor to the ground _with_ its two remaining occupants still inside?”

He stares at me for a moment before he regains his composure, his eyes glittering darkly. I’m suddenly reminded of Severus and swallow against the painful hitch in my chest.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, Malfoy, you’re wrong. Actually, what I _wish_ had happened was that no one had stopped me that time I found your throat at the tip of my wand.” He reaches out to press his finger against my Adam’s apple, forcing me to swallow reflexively. I wonder if he can see the bruises Harry left there this afternoon, and the thought enrages me as though Nott had walked in on our lovemaking. I swat his hand away, my eyes narrowing to the nearly colourless slits I know he must remember from our school days.

“Well, I suppose that’s just too bad for you, isn’t it, Nott? Looks like you missed your chance because kill me now, and you’ll have one of your best friends to answer to, and I can practically guarantee it won’t be a conversation you’d enjoy. Just ask Voldemort.”

Rage flares for an instant in those calculating eyes.

“Don’t you _dare_ talk to me of Voldemort,” Nott hisses. “And don’t you _ever_ play your . . . your . . . relationship . . .” he all but spits the word in my face. “ . . . or _whatever_ you call it, with Harry against me. You don’t know everything, Malfoy. In fact, you don’t even know _half_ of everything . . .”

This conversation must end, or I _will_ hex him. It is no longer a question of “if” but of “when.” Thankfully – for _both_ of us – the possibility of further dialogue is extinguished by Harry’s arrival. He slips an arm around my shoulders and holds out the other to shake Nott’s hand.

“Theo,” he says pleasantly. “Glad you could join us.”

I watch the struggle in Nott’s face between his disgust at Harry’s obvious affection for me and his equally apparent pleasure at Harry’s greeting. The pleasure wins out.

“Well, how could I pass up an invitation to a free dinner at Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo?” He claps his other hand around Harry’s before releasing him.

“Hope I didn’t interrupt any important Slytherin business,” Harry says, kissing my cheek. Nott and I exchange pointed covert glances.

“Not at all.” I turn to Harry with a smile. “And I trust you’ve wrapped up your business – whatever it was – with yonder gentleman?” I nod toward the vagrant who, I suddenly realise, is wearing Harry’s Kilgore coat. I roll my eyes.

“What?” he asks innocently. “It’s cold out.”

“Yes, it is. And how do you plan to keep warm now you’ve given your coat away?”

“By snuggling up to you, of course,” he laughs.

He kisses me again but this time on the mouth. He’s rarely this openly affectionate with me in public, and I glance at him questioningly when he pulls away. He shrugs a shoulder in response, grinning boyishly.

By this time, nearly everyone has arrived, except for Higglebee, who’d apparently volunteered to take a solo shift in Irkutsk. Much to Harry’s disappointment, no doubt. I see Lovegood and O’Malley walking from the direction of the Troitskiy Bridge. Judging from the volume of white breath between them, they’re obviously engaged in some kind of heated discussion. As soon as Lovegood catches sight of me, she runs over and throws her arms around my neck girlishly. I see Nott frown and give him a smirk over her head. O’Malley joins Longbottom, Watson, and Fairbanks by the Flame.

Krum is the last to arrive. As he always does, he shakes everyone’s hand formally, grunting their last names with a nod of his craggy head.

“Well, shall we?” Harry asks everyone assembled, but I sense the question is primarily directed at Longbottom because he responds with a curt nod.

We leave the Field of Mars and walk along the Moyka canal, past block after block of austere Regency mansions with their fluted door columns and Tiffany fanlights. Our voices and the sound of our footsteps echo in the relative quiet of a weekday evening. Every now and again, I notice the brightly coloured hems of Watson, O’Malley, and Lovegood’s gowns beneath their sombre black cloaks, like the vivid glimpse of a cardinal’s wing amidst a flock of sparrows.

“You must miss Evans,” I say to O’Malley. “How is he doing?”

“Better. He’s walking again, thank Merlin. We’re lucky there’s a small wizarding community in Irkutsk. If we hadn’t been able to stabilise him there before we tried transporting him back here, I don’t know what we would have done. Take him to a Muggle hospital, I suppose.” She shudders visibly at the prospect.

“Have you been able to learn anything about the spell that hit him?”

“Not a thing. It’s as though Mefodiy and his people are using completely different kinds of magic than we are.”

“Well, he is,” I say. “That’s what I’ve been working on.”

We walk in silence for several minutes. The night is sharp and clear and cold enough that smoke from the factories along the Neva hangs in the air like the breath of giants, refusing to dissipate.

O’Malley clears her throat. “You know Ed is at St. Mungo’s now?” she whispers into her collar without turning to look at me. “You should go talk to him.”

“No, I didn’t realise that.” I glance furtively at Harry who seems deep in debate with Krum over something or another. “I wonder why he didn’t tell me?”

O’Malley frowns. “Harry’s been under a lot of stress lately,” she says unhelpfully.

“So I’ve gathered. Although he’s been less than forthcoming about the details.”

I sense O’Malley stiffen and note the set of her mouth. “I suppose it doesn’t surprise me to hear that. He’s not one to talk about things is he, your Harry?”

“Should I be turning over in my grave?”

Startled by Harry’s sudden appearance at our sides, O’Malley and I look at him with twin expressions of horror on our faces.

“What?” he asks innocently. “I just heard my name is all.” He glances between the two of us. “Oh, go on! It’s a figure of speech.” He slips his arm through mine, and I feel that he’s shivering.

“No warming charms allowed?” I ask.

“No magic of any kind when the group’s all together.”

“Probably not a bad idea. Here.” I stop walking and take off my coat. “Take mine.”

“Don’t be daft,” he says. “Keep your coat. It’s freezing.”

“All the more reason for you to wear it the rest of the way.”

We stand at an impasse, glaring at each other.

“If you don’t take it, I’m not going to wear it either, and then we’ll _both_ be cold.”

“Malfoy, that is the dumbest idea . . .”

“Merlin’s balls, Harry!” yells Watson. “Will you take his coat already and hurry up? Our arses are about to drop off here!”

I glance over at the rest of them, huddled and stamping, blowing smoking breath into their cupped hands.

“You’re about to have a mutiny on your hands, Potter,” I say, arching an eyebrow at him imperiously.

He huffs and snatches my coat from my hand, draping it over his shoulders like a cape.

“Do you honestly think you’ll win this one by not putting your arms in the sleeves?”

He gives a defeated “hurmph” and dons the coat properly. I do the buttons for him and tuck his scarf beneath his chin.

“There,” I say, patronisingly. “Doesn’t that feel much better?”

To my surprise, he leans forward and kisses me tenderly, lingeringly.

“Yes, it does,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

I cup my hand against his cheek and give him a genuine smile. “Oh, you’re welcome.”

He grins and shakes his head fondly.

“Oh for the love of . . . . . !”

“All right, all right!” Harry shouts. “God, you people are a bunch of whingers! Listening to you, one would think you weren’t about to spend December in Siberia . . .”

“Don’t remind us!” come the chorus of groans.

 

Unsurprisingly, Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo turns out to be located in yet another palace. The Yusupov Palace, to be precise.

“I feel like I’m at Versailles,” says Fairbanks as we near the sprawling three-storey building, stretching more than a block along the canal. The buttercup-yellow of its stucco walls and white Corinthian pilasters are lit with floodlights, reflecting like a memory of summer in the dark ice-trimmed water. Inside, the staircase ascends in a boulevard of white marble and wine-dark carpet.

“I find it interesting,” remarks O’Malley as we stand in the foyer waiting for the concierge to take our coats, “that the main entrances of these palaces are always done in white marble. It’s as though the people who lived here never felt truly comfortable surrounded by anything that didn’t remind them of snow.”

“Must have made their inevitable exiles to Siberia more palatable then,” says Fairbanks before catching Watson’s incredulous expression. “Or not,” he adds with a grin.

“Can _anything_ make exile in Siberia ‘palatable’?” she asks.

“Lots and lots of vodka,” says Krum impassively.

“Spoken with experience,” snorts Watson, and Krum’s lips twitch almost imperceptibly in a smile.

The concierge informs us that the staff is still preparing our table and invites us to wander the second floor while we wait. Harry asks to see the champagne list and takes a seat on a settee in a wide alcove at the top of the stairs, while I stroll into the palace’s Grand Drawing Room. Its vast circular layout is impersonal and devoid of intimacy, so unlike the English country estates of the same era. But then again, unlike England, Russia in the mid-nineteenth century was newly emerging from centuries of feudal traditions and foreign invasions. The Russian aristocracy was not yet secure enough in their positions to allow for smaller, more intimate rooms or furniture that might encourage a visitor to recline at ease. I eye the formal straight-backed hall chairs lining the walls and try to picture visitors at the Manor in them. Come to think of it, there was something appealing in the image of uncomfortably alert guests, of knees pressed together under fine dress robes and spines aching in anticipation. Perhaps I have underestimated the role furniture can play in setting the tone of a dinner party . . . 

“Ah, there you are. Collecting decorating ideas?”

I hear the light, airy taps of the hard soles of Harry’s shoes on the parquet floor. They echo around the room in a satisfying way.

“There certainly is something very . . . imperial . . . about it, isn’t there?”

“Well, this wasn’t called ‘Imperial Russia,’ for nothing.”

I watch him as he walks to the centre of the room and turns slowly to take in the four doors and the four large mirrors between them.

“Anywhere you sit or stand in here, you can be seen,” he muses.

“Exactly. That’s the point, I’m sure. A wealthy prince in Tsarist Russia doesn’t want any surprises.”

He smiles mischievously. “And wealthy ‘princes’ in England don’t mind them?”

“Depends on the surprise,” I say.

He chuckles. “Well, I think we can safely say that no number of doors or mirrors or cyanide-laced cakes, for that matter, prevented the surprise that a handful of aristocratic Muggles experienced when they discovered a Dark Wizard can be pretty fucking tough to kill.”

The puzzle-pieces suddenly fall into place. “Rasputin!”

He nods. “This is the house where they tried to murder him. The operative word in that sentence being ‘tried,’ of course.”

Ah! How had it not occurred to me when I’d first heard the name of Yusupov? Memories suddenly course through my mind: my father in the Manor’s library, sitting by the fire, his long hair ruddy in the flickering light. Leaning back in the maw of his enormous black armchair and steepling his fingers beneath his chin. Teaching his son the history he would never learn at Hogwarts. Branding the images in his young mind, rendered impressionable by years of carefully cultivated terror and desire, benign neglect and unmeetable expectations, groundless vanity and utter degradation. I swallow, closing my eyes for a moment. When I open them again, Harry is looking at me quizzically. I clear my throat in an efficient and businesslike manner before meeting his gaze. “You have a sick sense of humour, Potter.”

He purses his lips, gauging my tone, before a slow grin crawls across his face. “Would you believe it if I told you that when I first made the reservations here, just for the two of us for last night, that I had no idea about all of that? Honestly, you can’t spit in this city without hitting a place with some kind of gruesome death in its past.”

“Well, this is hardly any old ‘gruesome death.’ This is Grigori Rasputin we’re talking about.”

He rocks on his heels for a minute. “You know, Mefodiy fancies himself the reincarnation of Rasputin. What is it with these Dark Wizards anyway? Obsessed with immortality and reincarnation. Who in their right mind wants to live forever?”

I watch him. His hands are clasped behind his back, pulling the fine silk of his waistcoat taut across his chest. _Me_ , I think. _But on one condition. That I can spend it with you_.

I cross the room to stand beside him. The mirror immediately in front of us shows two men in formal dress. One dark, the other light. Behind them is a second reflection, in the mirror across the way, and behind that a third . . . and a fourth. And on and on and on.

“Harry, Draco, our table’s ready!”

Lovegood slips between us and takes our arms, glancing from one of our faces to the other. “Mmmmm,” she murmurs, “aren’t I going to be the envy of all the other diners when they see what _I’m_ eating later tonight.” She grins predatorily.

“Er . . . ,” says Harry, and Lovegood and I laugh.

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard the patented Potter ‘er,’” I say.

Lovegood smiles and pats my arm, all of a sudden as grandmotherly as she was vampish a minute earlier. “I find I’m quite good at eliciting them. I can give you lessons if you’d like.”

“Thank you, but no,” I say. “I’m actually happier when I can get full sentences out of him.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” Harry sniffs. “I _am_ still present.”

“Tetchy, tetchy,” Lovegood murmurs, her knowing wink belying her guileless smile.

The restaurant’s two dining rooms are located in the former tearoom. The walls are swathed in cream-coloured silk brocade and lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and portraits of the palace’s former residents – Prince Nikolai Yusupov; the Empress’s lady-in-waiting, Princess Tatyana Ribeaupierre; the greatest of St. Petersburg beauties, Princess Zinaida, and her equally handsome son, Felix, that most famous of bungling would-be murderers. Despite the fact that they’re Muggle-done, the portraits’ eyes seem to follow us as we pass. As do the eyes of our fellow diners. Even in this well-dressed and pulchritudinous company, our group stands out in our sumptuous formal attire, and I’m pleasantly aware of the appraising stares and murmured commentary as we pass through the first dining room. Because it’s just then that it strikes me that this is Harry’s gift. Our public “coming out” of sorts. And he knows how I like to do things in style.

The other dining room has been reserved entirely for us, and I glance at Harry appreciatively as we take our seats, side by side, at the long table The high polish on the dark wood and the gleaming silver reflect the refracted light from three enormous crystal chandeliers.

“Wow!” breathes Watson. “I knew this place was posh, but this . . .” Her voice trails off in wonder as she tilts her head back to admire the intricate plaster rosettes on the ceiling.

Nott pulls out a chair next to Lovegood’s. “What did you expect? The Yusupov family had more money than the Tsars.” He shakes out his linen napkin. “They owned nearly 700,000 acres of land and 40,000 serfs in the mid-1800's. Most of whom probably starved or froze to death like the rest of the Russian peasantry . . .”

“The Yusupovs were renowned philanthropists,” grunts Krum.

“Yeah, so are a lot of so-called aristocrats. It’s just another way of buying power, influence, . . . and unwarranted pardons.” Nott sends me a nasty glance, but before he does so, I notice he checks to ensure Harry cannot see him.

“Yeah, but wasn’t Felix Yusupov one of the blokes who did in Rasputin?” asks Watson. “That certainly didn’t earn him any gold star with the Tsar. Get it: ‘star,’ ‘tsar.’” She chuckles at her own joke.

“Now _there’s_ a recipe for disaster,” Fairbanks grunts sardonically. “Tsars keeping Dark Wizards like pets . . .”

“ . . . more like whores than pets,” interjects Nott.

“Sounds like it was a mutually beneficial relationship, then,” says Watson. “I’ve heard Rasputin was sexually _voracious_. In fact, I’ve heard that’s how Felix lured him here in the first place – promised Rasputin he could shag his pretty new bride . . .”

“Hhhmmm,” murmurs Longbottom, surveying the menu. “I see this crew’s conversational tone is impervious to its surroundings.”

“Well, he must’ve been plenty disappointed then,” says Fairbanks. “Came expecting a shag and got poisoned cake instead. Seems like a pretty crap trade-off if you ask me.”

“Brings new meaning to having your cupcake and eating her, too, doesn’t it?” says Watson impishly, and Fairbanks rolls his eyes.

“Watson, they really don’t pay me enough to put up with your puns. You know that, don’t you?”

Harry leans over and kisses me behind my ear. “What do you think?” he whispers.

“I think you look gorgeous,” I say. “We should do white-tie more often . . .”

“No, you prat,” he chuckles. “What do you think of this place? Pretty spectacular, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

I turn my head, but he doesn’t draw back, and our mouths graze each other. I inhale sharply, my breath dragging and catching on the bright shards of desire that flare in my chest.

“Still hungry?” he whispers. “Even after two orgasms?”

I moan softly, remembering our afternoon together.

“Starving,” I whisper back.

He murmurs his own hunger against my mouth before kissing me fully and properly, holding my face and slipping his tongue around mine. I hear the backdrop of conversation melt slowly into silence. Someone pops a champagne cork, timing it perfectly with Harry’s withdrawal from our kiss, and I watch his eyes sparkle with fond amusement.

“And the smartass is?” he inquires.

“Believe it or not,” says O’Malley, “it was Neville.”

Longbottom holds up the newly opened bottle. “Your glass, Harry?”

It’s a question, and their eyes meet for a very long moment. Harry nods his assent, and Longbottom stands from his chair.

I’m not a regular part of their little group, but I can nonetheless sense something tense and unspoken in the air. Everyone watches Longbottom as he makes his way to our end of the table, and his and Harry’s eyes remain locked as Harry holds up his champagne flute for Longbottom to fill. At last, Longbottom turns his gaze to me.

“Draco?”

I nod, my throat curiously constricted.

As he fills my glass, Longbottom leans over and whispers in my ear. “You’re a lucky man.” He turns away before I can answer. “Your attention, please!”

Harry rises from his chair, and all eyes turn from Longbottom’s slow return to his place to Harry’s face. The refracted light catches in the champagne in his glass, casting shimmering reflections on the white silk of his waistcoat. He clears his throat.

“A couple of brief announcements before this feast gets underway . . . ,”

“They’ll be brief as long as you’re making them and not Higglebee,” murmurs Fairbanks to corresponding chuckles. Harry smiles and nods in obvious concurrence.

“As some but not all of you know, this is our last night here in St. Petersburg . . . ,”

A subdued murmur circles the table, and I watch each face closely – their various expressions of muted alarm and placid acceptance – trying to conceal my own surprise and rising dread.

“We knew it was coming,” Harry continues. “Though it’s turned out to be sooner rather than later.”

He pauses and clears his throat again.

“You all know the drill,” he says. “Leave your flats as though you’ve just nipped out to the shop. All your papers, everything except your wands.”

“Now I know the reason for the fancy dinner,” says O’Malley knowingly. “We’re about to receive rations of dried fish.” Longbottom opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. “Oh, don’t try to convince me otherwise, Neville. Remember I was with you two in Reykjavík.”

“Well, the good news,” says Harry, still standing, “is that whatever is going to happen in Irkutsk is going to happen fast. So in that sense, this will not be a repeat of Iceland. If everything goes as planned, we’ll be back home before Christmas . . .”

The table erupts in cheers and the clink of forks against glasses.

Harry waits for the clamour to subside. “Which brings me to my next announcement.”

He takes a deep breath, and I feel my heart skip a beat.

“Things are going to be chaotic over the next couple of weeks. We won’t all be in the same place at the same time. I wanted to tell you all now, while we’re here together . . .” He takes another deep breath. 

Everyone is silent. The muted conversations of the other diners in the neighbouring room and the sound of silverware on china seem like a forgotten dream, like memories from another life.

“I wanted to tell you all,” he continued, “that I’m leaving the squad. After this, I mean . . .” His words tumble out gracelessly, and I reach out to take his hand. He squeezes my fingers in return, grateful for the supportive gesture. “It’s time. Ten years I’ve been with the squad. The best ten years of my life thus far. But it’s time for me – for us –,” he glances down at me, “to start building a different kind of life. Together.”

The last word is for me alone, and I hear the quaver in his voice, the question in it. Our eyes lock as I stand slowly and take his other hand.

“This never would have happened if it weren’t for you,” he says, gesturing with his chin towards the table and his thunderstruck co-workers. “I was a casualty of the War. But you . . .” His eyes fill with tears, which make mine fill in turn. “But you saved me. From myself . . . just like you said. Just like you _promised_.”

I pull him into my arms, and he clutches me fiercely.

“Harry,” I whisper.

He gives a little laughing sob and pulls away, drawing his sleeve across his eyes. He smiles through his tears.

At the other end of the table, Longbottom pushes back his chair to stand. “Harry and I have fought side-by-side since we were both fifteen years old,” he says. “Some of you are too young to have seen firsthand what he sacrificed in the War against Voldemort, what he did for us. But all of you know that he has walked through fire time and time again . . .” He pauses, glancing down determinedly at the tablecloth before him, and I sense him trying to master some overpowering emotion. At last, he clears his throat and raises his glass. “Harry, I won’t say that your decision doesn’t bring me great sorrow, because it does,” he continues, his voice husky. “We will miss your vision, your strength, your sense of . . . irreverent . . . humour.”

A chuckle breaks the tension of the moment, and Harry nods a smile in Longbottom’s direction.

“But our work will go on, and we will be successful because of the foundations you have laid. Draco,” he turns to me, his glass still raised. “You’re taking from us our dearest friend and most trusted comrade, but all of us – all of us who have really known and loved Harry over the years – know that you’re not taking him away as much as you are taking him _back_. He’s been on loan to us by your good graces, and probably has been since that long-ago day that the group of us stood waiting to be called into the Great Hall to be sorted. The two of you were meant to be together, and your long estrangement was part of the terrible price the War exacted from our generation. Take each other at last. And be at peace.”

Longbottom raises his glass one last time before downing its contents in a single swallow. But I don’t fail to glimpse the strange sadness in his eyes, and its presence cannot help but colour everything he’s just said. Looking to O’Malley, I see the same expression reflected on her face, and suddenly I _know_ they know . . .

“To Harry and Draco!” 

Lovegood raises her glass and breaks the silence. The table joins her, every response a combination of congratulations and surprise . . . and, in Notts’ case at least, rebellious silence.

Harry smiles shakily. “Right. Thanks, Luna. Thank you, Neville. Well, shall we order then? I don’t know about you all, but I’m starving.”

We both take our seats, and Harry reaches blindly for my hand under the table, squeezing it hard when he finds it. I return the gesture.

“So, what does the world’s most powerful wizard do in his retirement?” asks Watson after the waiter takes our orders. “Potter around in the garden. No pun intended, of course.”

“Of course not,” says Harry wryly.

O’Malley clears her throat. “Katie, he probably hasn’t thought about that yet . . . Have you, Harry?” Her glance is worried and still sad, and Harry looks away from it as though it scorches him.

“Er, yeah,” he says Right. Haven’t thought about what I’ll be doing yet.”

“Except being with your beloved,” says Watson, grinning playfully, apparently completely oblivious to whatever it is that has just transpired between Harry and O’Malley. But nevertheless, Harry visibly relaxes.

“Exactly,” he says smilingly and kisses my cheek.

My stomach turns over in an alarming way, and I suddenly need air.

“Draco?” he says questioningly as I remove my napkin from my lap and push back my chair to stand.

“Excuse me,” I murmur to Watson and O’Malley and make my way as quickly as decorum will allow to the dining room door.

“Draco!”

I walk blindly through the other dining room, whispering hurried “pardon me’s,” and start down a long hallway lined with portraits. I can hear the swish of fabric and the muted thuds of Harry’s running footsteps on the carpet behind me.

“Draco! Stop!” He calls after my retreating back. “Where are you going?”

I would answer him, but I actually have no idea. Somewhere along the way, I’ve taken a wrong turn. Instead of finding the foyer, I turn a corner only to discover a wall and a staircase leading up to the third floor. I take it two steps at a time.

The room I suddenly find myself in at the top of the stairs is long and rectangular and empty. The walls are an eerie, almost-institutional green, without window or ornament. But above me, where one might expect to find a frescoed ceiling, is a vast pane of glass. Through a dusting of snow, I can just make out the bright pinpricks of stars and the graceful curve of a crescent moon. 

At the far end of the room, across what seems like an acre of mosaic floor, is a single door. It is closed, but I can _feel_ the magic pulsing through the polished wood and brass. But although it is magic, it tastes strange and foreign on my tongue. Strange, foreign and _old_. Not ‘old’ in the sense of ancient and awe-inspiring, but ‘old’ in a worn, frayed, mothball-smelling kind of way.

Beside me, Harry draws his wand from the pocket inside his jacket and gestures for me to be silent. I draw my wand as well, and we move carefully towards the door, stepping through the complex pattern of starlight and shadow tangled with the equally complex geometric patterns on the mosaic floor. We’re within steps of the door before we hear quiet voices and faint girlish laughter on the other side. Harry presses an unnecessary finger to his lips before knocking tentatively. All sound ceases on the other side, but we stay where we are. 

Harry knocks again.

A reedy voice, raised in a wary question and speaking Russian, scarcely trickles through the door, and for the first time I consider the possibility that we’ve stumbled across a colony of ghosts. I glance questioningly at Harry.

“May we come in?” he calls through the door.

There is a rustle of movement, sounding as though it involves a large quantity of stiff and unwieldy fabric. Not ghosts, then. At last, the voice answers in heavily accented English.

“Who is there?”

“Friends,” says Harry. “Wizards.”

“Why have you come?”

“To pay our respects. We are visiting Russia. On holiday.”

There is a long silence, and I’ve begun to think there will be no response when the voice speaks again.

“Have you letters of introduction?”

Harry turns to me with a baffled expression and mouths “what?”

“No,” I say through the door. “But I am of the families Malfoy, Black and Rosier. Perhaps you are familiar . . .”

There is a brief but animated buzz of conversation behind the door. Harry and I watch each other’s faces in breathless anticipation, both of us clutching our wands tighter.

“Are you . . . how to say . . . ?” The voice falls silent for a moment. “Tsar or tsarevich?”

I shrug questioningly at Harry and return his mouthed “what?”of a few moments earlier.

“Lord,” Harry says. “He’s a lord. Lord Malfoy.” The silence persists. “Tsar, uh . . . prince?”

The excited buzz erupts once again. “Not ‘son of’ lord, but lord himself?”

“Yes,” says Harry, waggling an eyebrow at me, and despite myself I return his smile.

“Why not say at once? Please, come in!”

The door creaks open, and I blink in the sudden bright glow of a hundred candles. At first I cannot tell what had opened the door, until my eyes adjust and I notice the faint outline of a figure, no larger than a child, but seemingly comprised of smoke or fog. Harry peers at it with a kind of fascinated antipathy.

“Must be a _domovoi_ ,” I whisper. “A kind of house-sprite.”

Harry nods. “It mustn’t require much to maintain. A kind of house-elf for aristocrats on a budget?”

I’m scarcely able to swallow my snort of laughter. “Something like that. Perhaps for that very reason they’re popular in Siberia.”

I step forward and glance around. The room is small in comparison with the rest of the palace’s rooms that I’ve seen thus far, and the sense of confined space is accentuated by the fact that it is crammed with belongings of all kinds and description. It’s as though the occupants carry on every aspect of their lives in this single windowless room. Certainly it _smells_ like that’s the case. I wrinkle my nose involuntarily at the overwhelming aroma of old parchment, unwashed bodies, and something that reminds me of the intensive care ward at St. Mungo’s. At my side, I can sense Harry taking in every detail, but his face reveals nothing of what he may be thinking.

Aside from the elf-cum-sprite creature, there are six people in the room who, judging by the marked similarities in their features, must all be related. A middle-aged witch, with firm – although not stern – features and the unmistakable bearing of an aristocrat, and five children of varying ages. 

The eldest girl, who must be around nineteen, has a patient, feminine face. The next eldest, who cannot be more than a year younger than her sister, is tall and very beautiful and carries herself in the same manner as her mother. The next two – also girls – are plainer than their sister but kinder looking. The younger of the two stares shyly at her feet. The youngest child is a small frail boy, blond and sickly looking. But beneath the patina of illness, it is clear that his beauty may one day rival that of his older sister.

None of this would be particularly odd but for the fact they are all dressed in robes that I have never seen anywhere outside a pureblood family’s portrait gallery. Their cut must be at least a hundred and fifty years out of style.

“Greetings,” says the middle-aged witch, rising to her feet.

I glance at Harry, and he nods almost imperceptibly.

“Greetings,” I say, bowing my head courteously. “I’m Lord Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, deceased, and Narcissa Black Malfoy. And this is . . .”

“Harry Potter.” He bows his head slightly, but it’s more of a nod than anything else.

“We have heard of ‘Malfoy,’” says the woman. “My mother knew a Lord Abraxas Malfoy . . . many years ago.”

“That would be my grandfather,” I say.

“Ah,” she says in a way that seems either evasive or sad. “We . . .” she gestures to the five children, “ . . . are the _familia_ Fyodorovna. My name is Alexandra.”

I feel an unpleasant jolt at her phraseology. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” I say.

“It is a great sorrow that my husband is not here to greet you as well,” says Alexandra.

Something black and furry scuttles from under the clavichord, which is draped with what could be either robes or curtains, and I notice its feet leave dark tracks in the dust, thick as snow. No one seems to notice.

“Is . . . is he away then?” I reply, recovering from the momentary distraction.

“He is at the family home. We are the ones who are away. I am visiting my sister’s family here in St. Petersburg.”

“It is a shame that he cannot be with you,” I say, smiling politely.

“Where is he?”

We all turn to look at Harry.

“Where is your ‘family home’?”

Alexandra turns back to me. Her face a mask of aristocratic pleasantry.

“Friend?” she enquires placidly. “Servant, perhaps?”

Mmmm, that’s rich, I think. I can almost feel Harry’s amusement radiating off him.

“Friend,” I say.

Alexandra turns back to him. “The family estate is in Siberia.”

“Siberia’s a big place,” says Harry.

“Yes,” says Alexandra, and I’m reminded powerfully of my own mother for a moment, of her gift for polite dissembling and cordial obstruction. “Yes, it is.” She turns back to me. “May I offer you and your friend some refreshment?” 

Without waiting for me to respond, she nods at her eldest daughter who rises obediently.

“No. Thank you, but we must decline,” I say. I feel Harry stiffen slightly and sense he’d like to stay a while longer, but the stifling smell of decay and the Pureblood code words are playing merry hell with my nerves. Not to mention the fact that the boy has started weeping blood from the corners of his eyes, and no one – including him – seems to notice or care.

“We are having dinner in the restaurant downstairs,” I say by way of explanation.

Alexandra fails to conceal a fleeting blanch of revulsion.

“Very well,” she says with what could only be described as an injured air. “We are pleased and honoured that his lordship stooped to visit . . .”

“The pleasure and honour are all mine,” I say, cutting her off. The boy has turned slightly to glance at his mother, and I see that he is bleeding from his ears as well . . .

“Would it be too forward of me to ask you to sign our guest book?”

I shudder. But there really is no polite way to decline.

“Certainly,” I say, and Harry must have heard the brittleness in my voice because he tips his head and watches me closely.

Alexandra motions for her daughter to bring me the fat leather-bound volume resting on a table by the rosewood chaise longue. She stands before me with the book open in her hands like a choir boy, her eyes respectfully averted.

I remove my wand and murmur a _Sectum_ incantation at the index finger of my left hand, watching as a thin cut opens at the tip. Practically _feeling_ Harry’s frown, I blot the excess blood on a handkerchief the second eldest daughter hands me before pressing the pad of my finger on the yellowed parchment and rolling it from side to side slightly. I withdraw with a faint tacky catch, leaving behind a perfect bloody fingerprint, and immediately spidery lettering materialises beneath it. _Lord Draco Lucius Malfoy. Wiltshire, England._

The daughter holding the book carries it quickly and reverently to a nearby desk and sprinkles sealing powder on it, gently blowing away the excess. I want to laugh aloud in my discomfort, but instead I turn to Alexandra.

“Thank you for your kind hospitality. If ever I am in St. Petersburg again, I will be sure to present myself properly.” I take her extended hand and kiss her knuckles. Her skin smells faintly of sour milk and medicinal herbs.

She is flattered by my traditional manners and smiles warmly at me. “We are so rarely in St. Petersburg anymore,” she says. “And these quarters are not our best. Please visit us sometime at our home in Irkutsk.”

I fail to stifle the gasp of surprise before it escapes me, and Alexandra interprets my response as disapprobation.

“We are not so very backward in Siberia,” she says coldly.

“You mistake my reaction, madam,” I reply quickly. “I meant no offense. It’s only that Irkutsk is . . . is a long way to travel.”

She seems placated by my explanation, and the smile returns to her face. “Then you shall come for a long visit.”

“Thank you,” I say with a bow.

As Harry and I prepare to leave, I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye as one of the younger girls holds a silver bowl up to the boy’s chin, and the sound of his quiet retching accompanies us to the door.

“Eugh!!” I hiss as soon as we’re back in the silvery light of the green room. Compared to the close heat in the space we’ve just left, the air here feels cold and fresh. I shiver and realise I’ve been sweating beneath my waistcoat and shirt. “Eugh! I feel like I need a shower or an extra strong cleansing charm!”

“I wonder . . .” Harry is pacing, tapping his lips with his fingers as he always does when he’s thinking.

“Did you see the boy?” I say. “Merlin! What was wrong with him?”

“I’ve met some of the wizarding families in Irkutsk,” he says. “But no one has ever mentioned . . . but the White House . . . I wonder . . .”

“If you’re going to speak in cryptic half-riddles that you never intend to explain, please refrain from sharing your thoughts,” I snap.

He stops mid-pace and shakes his head as if clearing it before turning to me. “What’s the matter with you? Why did you leave like that?”

We’re standing beneath the overhead window, and the snow dusting it – as well as the memory of the tomb-like atmosphere in the little room we’ve just left – suddenly makes me feel as though we’re buried underground, instead of standing on the third floor of a grand palace.

“I . . . I needed some air,” I stammer.

He reaches for my arm and pulls me into the sliver of moonlight he’s standing in. “Is it too much? Too fast?”

I laugh, and the sound of it in the cavernous room is even more harsh than I meant it to be. “I can assure you that it’s neither . . .”

He squeezes my arm, and I glance up at his face, startled. 

The cold light reflects off the lenses of his glasses, and I cannot see his eyes. “It’s true, you know. What Neville said. It’s true. I’ve been yours since the day I first laid eyes on you.” He leans forward to kiss me. “How could I not have known . . . ?”

“Harry,” I say against his mouth. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making this harder than it already is?”

He pulls back, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“You’re . . . you’re worried about destroying me if you die but here you are practically asking me to marry you in front of your best friends. Friends, by the way, who seem to know a whole lot more about the danger you face tomorrow than I do.”

He sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology,” I say heatedly. “What I want is some damn information!”

“And what would you do with it if I gave it to you, Draco?” he snaps back. “What could you possibly do? Throw yourself between me and Mefodiy’s wand? Lock me up and keep me from going back to Irkutsk? What?”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, my eyes fill with tears. “Fuck you, Potter!”

“What? Why ‘fuck me?’ What have I _ever_ done that wasn’t expected of me?”

I glare at him, feeling the tears leak down my face. “Don’t give me that shit. You’re doing this because you _want_ to. Because part of you wants to die. Because maybe you think there’s nothing worth living for . . .”

His dark brows knit in a deep frown. “Is that what you think, Draco? Is that what you _honestly_ think?”

Bloody hell! I feel stupid standing here in formal dress, weeping out of fear and frustration like a child.

“I don’t know,” I cry. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t even _know_ enough to know what to think. Merlin, Harry! You’ve tied my hands here.”

He tugs my arm hard and pulls me tight against him. “Draco, hush. Don’t cry.” His voice is pained. “It kills me when you cry . . .”

I clutch him to me. “Well good. Because this is bloody well killing _me_.”

He rocks me, kissing my temple, my jaw, licking the tears from my cheeks.

“I would do anything,” he whispers into my hair. “ _Anything_ to not have to go back tomorrow, to not have to leave you again.”

“Anything,” I say hollowly “but leave the squad in the lurch.”

He’s silent for a long moment, but at last he sighs.

“Yeah,” he says. “Anything but that.”

[](http://frayach.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/363/37566)


	4. Chapter 4

The bed beside me is empty, but if I close my eyes and breathe deeply I can still smell Harry on the sheets, in the still air of the quiet flat.

I am thinking as I lie here, dried come flecking my belly and my inner thighs, my arse stretched and sore and my balls light after being emptied – once in his mouth and once in his arse – that I may, in fact, hate him. Because despite my many pleas and his promises, he didn’t wake me before he left. And now here it is. A nine fucking o’ clock dawn in St. Petersburg, and I’m lying here, boned and filleted by a kind of pain that would make a _Cruciatus_ seem like blessed relief.

 

Above me the cherubs flit about in their eternal summer, but beyond the windows the sky is slate grey and spitting snow.

 

Everything is like he said it should be. Today’s _International British Wizard_ is on the kitchen counter, and there’s more coffee than he knows I could drink in a week warming in the pot. There are dishes in the sink and hastily scrawled notes on the fridge: _Wednesday 12/11 meet K. at Sadko’s - 5 p.m.; Floo-call H.; pick up milk, eggs_. In the bathroom, I find his razor and a pair of pants on the floor. If I allow myself a moment’s reprieve, I can imagine him coming in, his arms full of parcels and snow in his hair, kicking the door shut unceremoniously behind him. _Up at dawn, Malfoy? How unlike you._

I pour myself some coffee and take a dispirited sip, tasting behind its bitter heat the all-too-familiar wet ash of loneliness. If only there was such a thing as a Time-Turner for the future. Christmastime, he’d said. If everything goes smoothly . . .

But I have to push that line of thought to the back of my mind. There’s nothing else for it. Either I push it back, or I let it overwhelm me, and the latter would mean having to stay here, in this empty flat, because trying to Apparate would virtually guarantee a Splinching.

I pour the remainder of my coffee down the drain and leave the mug under the tap along with his cereal bowl with its dozen-or-so desultory bran flakes floating in watery milk. From the alleyway beneath the window comes the honk of a lorry and an impatient shout in Lithuanian. I wander into the bathroom and strip off my morning robes, leaving them pooled gracelessly on the floor beside Harry’s pants. The shower heats up with excruciating slowness, and I stand, watching the steam obliterate my reflection, erasing first an arm and then my head. The last part to disappear is the area of my chest around my left nipple. It must be the circle he wipes clear so that he can see his reflection while he shaves. My throat clenches as I picture him, shaving like a Muggle, twisting his mouth from side to side and frowning in concentration, the white foam dotting his earlobes until he grabs a towel and wipes it off. I step aside so that the single clear spot on the mirror reflects nothing but the shower curtain. Because standing there, looking at the space where my heart should be is killing me.

I shower and dress quickly, not bothering to shave. Unlike Harry, who often has a five o’ clock shadow, I can go days before the fine pale hair on my face becomes noticeable. Besides, I can’t be arsed. I pull on trousers and button my shirt and choose a set of elegant blue robes from Harry’s closet. Fuck him. If he wants them back, he can damn well live through the next few weeks and ask for them. Nicely. And preferably on his knees. I pack and shrink my trunk and wrap a cloak around my shoulders. Beyond the windows a weak sun is trying to burn a hole through the interminable grey of a November morning in St. Petersburg, but here in Harry’s flat the shadows linger, crumpled like discarded garments in the corners. Without so much as a farewell glance at the bed we made love in not seven hours earlier, I breathe deeply, close my eyes, and prepare to Apparate.

 

For some unfathomable reason, my mother is in the entrance hall. She shrieks in fright and drops her teacup when I suddenly appear, startling me within an inch of Splinching.

“Merlin! Draco! Darling, you just about scared me to death!”

“And vice versa,” I gasp, clutching my side. “Literally.”

“Goodness! You shouldn’t Apparate into the house like that! Or at least Firecall ahead and tell the house-elves to make sure there’s no one in the entrance hall.”

“It’s seven o’ clock, Mother. I hardly imagined anyone in the Malfoy household would be up at this hour. Let alone loitering in the foyer.”

“I’m waiting for Stukley to bring the carriage around. I thought I’d visit Maeve . . .”

“At seven in the morning?”

I’m still bent over and gasping. It feels as though someone’s plunged a hot poker into my side, and I wonder fleetingly if a bloodless Splinching of one’s internal organs is possible.

“Darling, you don’t sound well.”

“That’s because I’m _not_ well,” I snap.

She takes my arm and leads me to the settee. I collapse on to it bonelessly. She smooths the hair away from my brow and peers at my face.

“Heavens, Draco. You look terrible.”

“Thank you for noticing.”

“And where have you been anyway? You know I hate it when you go off like that with no warning. . .”

“Didn’t have time,” I wheeze.

“And where were you, anyway. Don’t tell me you were with Harry Potter again. Haven’t heard much about him lately. I thought he’d . . . abandoned you this past summer. Or you’d abandoned him. I sincerely hope it was the latter . . .”

“Mother,” I say with as much sternness as I can muster. “Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m a deflowered maiden, and I really would prefer not to have this particular discussion with you at this particular moment.”

Her eyes narrow, and I feel as though I’m literally watching the gears turn as she shifts tack.

“Alberic Carrow came by on Sunday . . .”

“Did he, now?” I feign nonchalance, but in my present state I know she can see right through it.

“Indeed he did,” she replies stonily. “Care to tell me why you’re suddenly receiving social calls from your old Death Eater chums?”

“Not really.”

Her face turns maternal and sorrowful. She pulls my hand into her lap and holds it between both of hers.

“Oh, _Draco_. Tell me it’s not true.”

“What? That I’m . . . I don’t know what you’re imagining . . . that I’m practising in the Dark Arts again or something?”

“Oh, if _that’s_ what you’re doing, well, then . . . I’m not thrilled about it for what I think are very obvious, not to mention legitimate, reasons but . . .”

“What were you thinking then?”

Her lips press in an obstinate thin pink line.

“Oh, I see.” I nod wearily. “You thought I might be fucking Alberic . . .”

“Draco! Surely you don’t need to use such coarse language!”

“Well, we may as well call a spade a spade, Mother. Merlin knows, we’ve been living together like two old spinsters long enough to stop being coy about each other’s dalliances.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘each other’s,’” she sniffs. “There’s only one member of this family who refuses to settle down properly. Eliseus and I have been together for five . . .”

I am definitely not in the mood for a lecture on my alleged refusal to link myself properly with a partner. While I appreciate her hard-won acceptance that there will be no new daughter-in-law, she still has not relinquished the hope that I will one day have some kind of public and socially exploitable relationship (which an affair with Carrow would decidedly _not_ be), preferably involving an announcement of some kind in _The Prophet_ ’s society pages. Although the exact nature of my relationship with Harry has been the source of whispered conjecture for years, we have never behaved like a couple in public. Instead, we’re careful to look like nothing more than casual acquaintances, greeting each other with distant cordiality at Ministry functions and social events involving any but our closest friends.

“Mistress,” squeaks Bobbin. “Your carriage.”

“Ah, good!” she says and stands from the settee. “It’s about time. Draco, darling,” she cups my cheek in her palm, and I can feel from its dry warmth that my face must be clammy and cold. “Have some tea and go to bed.” She kisses my forehead like she did when I was a child, and I take her hand before she can withdraw, kissing her palm.

“Tell Maeve ‘hello’ from me.”

“I will, sweetheart. You rest well and tell the house-elves not to bother you. They’ve been frightfully cheeky the past couple of days.”

I watch as she straightens her long ermine-trimmed robes and flicks her wand so that her cloak hovers above the floor as though a man were graciously holding it for her. She smiles coquettishly when she sees that I’m watching her and blows a kiss off her gloved palm.

“Later, darling,” she says and is gone in a whirlwind of perfume and white fur.

I scrub my face with my palms.

“Would Master like tea?”

“Yes. In the library, please,” I answer without looking up.

“Would Master like his mail from the past few days?”

“What? Yeah. Sure. Why not.”

“Would Master . . .”

“Bobbin,” I say. “Tea and mail is really all I can manage right now, so that will be fine. Thank you.”

“Yessir,” she squeaks and vanishes with a _pop_.

I stand and inhale deeply. The sharp catch in my side has disappeared, but I still feel shaken and drained. Not as much as the last time, but it’s nevertheless worse than usual. On my way to the library, I visit my study to make sure the scrolls I’d been writing before I received Harry’s invitation were stored away in my chest like I’d requested. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see them, all rolled and ordered, just as they should be. Bobbin can be irritating, but she is also one of the most efficient head house-elves I’ve ever owned. Efficient _and_ discreet – two essential traits for anyone who wishes to remain in my employ.

I’ve only just started on my second cup of tea when Bobbin appears.

“A Missus Hermione Granger Weasley Longbottom to see you, Master, sir.”

I glance up from the latest missive from my solicitor.

“Send her in.”

A minute later I hear the military precision of Granger’s footsteps on the hallway’s parquet floor, and then Bobbin pushes the door open.

“Sir, Missus Hermione Granger Weas . . .”

“Yes, thank you, Bobbin.”

I’m sure Granger isn’t fooled by my strained civility, but considering how I’m feeling this morning, she’s lucky I even attempted to accede to her niceness-to-house-elves agenda. I stand from my writing table as she enters and gesture to the sitting area by the fireplace.

“Granger, what a pleasant surprise. Please, have a seat.”

“Malfoy,” she says, business-like as ever. No matter that Harry and I have toured Tuscany and Provence with her and Longbottom, she always treats me in Harry’s absence like one of her patients. It doesn’t bother me, though. I actually prefer it that way.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please.”

We settle into the armchairs on either end of the leather couch. Granger fusses for a minute with her no-nonsense linen robes before accepting the cup and saucer I Levitate to her.

“Thank you,” she says, taking a sip and setting the cup on the brass-lined kettle stand.

“Biscuit?”

“No thank you. Malfoy, what do you know about the squad’s mission in Irkutsk?”

Ah, good old get-to-the-point-Granger. And to think there was a time not so long ago when I found her churlish and uncouth. But I’m in no mood for punctilios this morning, and her no-nonsense approach is more than welcome.

“Almost nothing. What has Longbottom told you?”

She sighs. “Nothing.”

“They decamped from St. Petersburg this morning. All of them.”

“I figured as much. Neville hinted the other night that things were coming to a head.”

I take a deep breath and set my cup beside Granger’s.

“Nice of them to let us know. Considering we’ve been doing research for them for the past few months.”

“There’s something they’re not telling us . . . ,” she muses aloud, tapping her index finger against the side of her nose just as she used to during exams at school.

“You think?” I snap.

Granger ignores me.

“. . . was the research just a diversion, or did they only just discover it was superfluous . . .?”

“A diversion? To distract the ‘spouses’?” I make finger quotes around the word “spouses.” “That seems not only ridiculously wasteful but unnecessarily cruel.” In my head I add, _and furthermore Harry would never do that to me. Not in a million years . . ._

“I don’t know about you, but _my_ spouse is forever trying to divert my attention away from how dangerous his job is,” she says, smiling ruefully. “But no, you’re probably right.”

We sit in silence for several minutes. Outside, it starts to rain, and water streaks the tall window at the far end of the room. I shiver and pull my robes – _Harry’s_ robes – tighter about me.

“You just came from Russia.”

I look from the window to find Granger watching me and discover that I don’t know whether to feel alarmed or oddly comforted by the astuteness of her guess.

“I did.”

“You don’t look well.”

“Thank you. You and my mother can converse about that fact when she gets back, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss my . . . travelling issues.”

Granger shrugs.

“All right. This was the last time anyway, so I suppose it makes no sense to discuss why you’ve been having trouble lately.”

My stomach drops.

“What do you mean ‘the last time’?” I ask, my voice sharp.

Granger gives me a startled look.

“I only meant that after this, Harry is finished with the squad.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes in a wave of relief. When I open then again, Granger is still looking at me strangely.

“So, Harry told you, did he?”

“I got an owl from him this morning. Malfoy, why were you so startled just now? What did you think I was talking about?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”

Granger frowns, and I feel as though I’m getting a glimpse of what life must be like for the Granger-Longbottom daughters. And probably Longbottom, too.

“Clearly it’s not ‘nothing,’” she says.

“Well, it’s nothing that I can explain. Cogently at least.”

“Try me.”

I watch her closely for a long moment. In many respects, her face retains the serious girlishness I remember from our schooldays. She’s the kind of person you can easily imagine managing just fine on four hours of sleep a night and feeling morally superior for the fact. There’s a focused energy to her eyes, to the set of her mouth. But that’s where the similarities end. There is also a cautiousness that was never there before. A kind of reticence, as though she senses not every problem can be solved and not every question answered. While it might be a stretch to call it “humility,” it gives her an air of wisdom rather than mere knowledge. Of necessary and painful experience. It almost makes me trust her. That is if I were capable of trusting anyone except Harry.

I take a deep breath, exhaling heavily.

“Harry seems to think he’s going to die in Irkutsk. He seems almost convinced of it, in fact.”

Granger is silent, but I notice that a vein has started ticking in her temple.

“That isn’t like him,” she says.

“Hence my concern.”

“What did he tell you? Did he say why he felt so convinced?”

“I couldn’t get any concrete information from him at all.”

Granger suddenly stands and starts pacing in front of the fireplace. “This is ridiculous! We can’t just sit here like this speculating . . .”

I glare at her.

“And perhaps you think that this how I’d prefer to spend the next several days? Drifting around the Manor like a ghost and lying awake at nights imagining . . .” I swallow hard. “What, exactly, do you propose we do?”

Just as suddenly as she’d started pacing, Granger stops and rounds on me.

“ _We?_ You weren’t even going to tell me. If I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t have said anything. Harry is _my friend_ , damn it! We were friends when you were nothing but . . . but . . .”

She stammers when she sees my expression and drops her face into her hands.

“Oh my God,” she mutters. “I am so sorry.”

I turn back toward the window. The rain is coming down in torrents now, battering the glass and turning the world outside into a tableau of melting greys and dark leafless branches.

“Malfoy?” she says. “Dra . . .”

“It’s all right, Granger,” I say wearily. “You’re welcome to whatever opinion of me you choose. More tea?”

She must sense the closing of the door that had cracked open between us because she sits heavily and covers her eyes. I Levitate the teapot and fill her cup. “I hate feeling so powerless. I’m not good at it. Never have been.” She pulls her hand away from her face, looking tired and worn and penitent. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I almost feel bad when her shoulders droop even further upon encountering my cold civility. But I am exhausted and heartsick and just as frustrated as she is. Her evident alarm at my news has done nothing but underscore and heighten my own morbid discomfort.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” she says. “I promise.”

We drink our tea in silence, and I can sense that we’re both thinking about Harry – about the fact that it’s already tomorrow where he is, and anything could have happened already. I feel a kind of leaden panic in my chest, a sensation I have not felt for many years. I breathe in deeply, searching for something to steady myself, and my eyes fall on the fireplace’s wrought iron grate. Suddenly, unbidden and intensely immediate, a memory of Harry appears in my mind. It must be around Christmastime because the bearskin rug is in front of the fire, and the mantel is garnished with evergreens and candles. Harry is lounging on the floor, propped on an elbow, and idly twirling the mulling poker along the grate. From my vantage point on the couch, I cannot see his face, but the graceful line of his back, the curve of his shoulders, are clear through the fine white cloth of his shirt, back-lit by the fire’s dancing light.

 _“You know, you don’t have to hold that,”_ I say. _“You can let it rest in the embers.”_

_“I don’t want ashes in my port.”_

I chuckle.

_“You poor Muggle-raised innocent. What do you think cleansing charms are for?”_

He doesn’t answer and instead plunges the poker deep into the fire, sending up a spray of sparks, and sets it down to rest on the grate.

_“An innocent, you say?”_

He rolls on to his back in the thick bearskin and turns his heat-flushed face to me. I hold his eyes as his fingers toy with the buttons of his shirt, undoing them languidly, and I feel my mouth go dry with wanting him. Beneath his head, his hair blends seamlessly with the sheen of the bear’s pelt. I long to run my hands through it, feel it slip, heavy and shining and dark through my fingers. I long to bury my face in it and breathe in the scent of him. I long to taste the fire’s heat on his skin and feel him arch into my embrace. I long for him to feel my need for him, to recognize and claim it as his own. I want it to rack him, break him, set him free. I want . . . 

“Well, I suppose I should be going.”

My head snaps up in surprise, and just like that the memory vanishes. I flush deeply when I catch Granger’s eyes.

“Right. Well. Thank you for coming by,” I say, standing as she does and feeling grateful for Harry’s voluminous robes.

“This way, Madam,” squeaks Bobbin, appearing with her discreet _pop_ and holding the door of the library open for Granger.

“That’s all right, Bobbin,” I say. “I’ll see Missus Longbottom out myself.”

We walk in companionable silence down the long hall. My vivid memory of Harry has soothed me, and I’m no longer cross at Granger for her little outburst. It was no big surprise, after all, to discover that she apparently still harbours suspicions as to my worthiness to be linked with Harry. So be it. There are many things she simply can never know about me. About us.

“You have a lovely home.”

“Thank you. Longbottom’s family estate is nothing to sneeze at either.”

She smiles, recognising the remark for the olive branch that it is.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to living in a place that has more rooms than there are weeks in a year.”

What a transition it must've been, I think, to go from the crowded Weasley home and an equally crowded Number Twelve Grimmauld Place to the sombre cavernous rooms of Longfield House.

“I basically close the east and west wings between New Year’s and Beltane. After all, it’s just myself and my mother here, and sometimes my mother’s gentleman friend . . .”

Granger giggles and upon seeing my puzzled expression breaks into outright laughter.

“ _Gentleman friend_? Is that how you refer to Harry in polite company?”

I feel myself smile. We’ve reached the entrance hall with its public Floo, vast enough to accommodate parties of twelve. Granger reaches for my hand, giving it a quick, sure squeeze.

“It will be all right.”

I nod.

“We’ll talk soon,” she says. “You can contact me any time. I mean that.”

She steps into the Floo and takes a handful of powder from the pewter pot that Bobbin holds out to her. Flashing a final stoic smile, she pronounces the address of her destination and is gone.

 

The rest of the week passes uneventfully.

Despite being more or less convinced that my research is no longer necessary, I continue going to the Bodleian archives every morning. At the very least, it gives me something to do that isn’t wholly unrelated to Harry and permits me to pretend to myself that I’m actually helping him in some small way.

And in the evenings, I have dinner with former would-be Death Eaters.

Some of them are repentant, while others are just waiting for a new Dark Lord to skulk after. When I walk into the entrance hall to greet Alberic Carrow, I notice immediately the hopeful glint in his eyes and feel the eagerness in his handshake. He is just as transparent as he’d been during the War.

“Alberic, how good of you to come.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Draco,” he says with an oily smile.

“I’m sure it is,” says my mother out of the corner of her mouth, and I have to chew my lip to suppress a bubble of laughter. She holds out her hand for Carrow to kiss in an elegant sweep of pale skin and angora.

“Lady Malfoy,” he murmurs against her knuckles, and I bite back a smile at the smirk she gives the back of his bowed head.

“You realise, of course, that I’m not technically ‘Lady Malfoy’ anymore since my son has inherited his title.”

“Yes, you may refer to my mother as the Dowager Lady Malfoy,” I interject with a quick wink in her direction, knowing how deeply she loathes the designation.

She glares at me.

“There will be no use of the word ‘Dowager’ in this household,” she says. “So, if you simply must refer to me, then I suppose you may use ‘Lady Malfoy,’ despite the fact that I’m Draco’s mother, not his wife.”

“You could have fooled me,” Carrow says smoothly. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d have no trouble believing you were Draco’s dewy new bride.”

I spare a brief glance for the obscured heavens.

“Eugh!” my mother says under her breath, and this time I nearly draw blood when I bite my lip.

“How very sweet of you,” she says to Carrow, but her response is more rote than enthusiastic. “Well, you gentlemen have a pleasant _dinner_ – ” She pauses to scowl at me in a way designed to look like a fleeting facial tic to the uninitiated. “ – I’m late for an appointment,” she says, fixing me with a level stare. “Draco. I trust there will be no – excursions – tonight to certain abbeys in certain parishes beginning with the letter ‘A’?”

I take a moment to reflect on the fact that my mother, while not knowing everything about me, probably knows too much. But then I notice the rapacious gleam in Carrow’s eye, and move hastily to prevent her from spotting and misinterpreting it.

“The furthest excursion Alberic and I will be making this evening is a trip to the study for an after-dinner drink.”

Her eyes narrow as she searches my face for a brief moment.

“Good thing,” she says finally, wrapping her mink shawl around her shoulders and checking to see that her hair is still in place with a bejewelled aristocratic hand. “I wouldn’t want a certain _someone_ to find out otherwise.”

I give her a smile tinged in equal measure with bemusement and irritation. How calculating of her to trot out references to Harry when it suits her purpose.

“Bye bye, darling,” she says and kisses my cheek. “Alberic.”

“What? No kiss for me?” he asks.

My mother gives him a look that I’m certain countless people over the years have seen on my own face, and then with a _crack_ she’s gone. I turn to Carrow, and find him unfazed by my mother’s curt dismissal. In fact, he’s practically rubbing his hands together with excitement. I swallow a surge of intense dislike as if it were bile.

“Shall we?” I manage to grind out through gritted teeth. “Dinner is being served in the _petit salon_.” I gesture towards the hallway on the right.

Carrow deposits himself meatily between the armrests of his chair, adjusts his ample arse, and shakes his napkin out as though he were about to dig into an all-you-can-eat buffet. I watch him as I pour the wine and wonder fleetingly how it is that my mother can hold my aesthetic sensibilities in such low esteem. He accepts the glass I hand to him and raises it with a predictable “To old friends!” And although I smile tolerantly, I do not join him. Instead I wave my hand, and the bisque appears. Carrow drinks to his own toast in a distinctly uneasy gulp, after which he manages to make small talk for all of five minutes before he asks who the “certain someone” my mother had mentioned might be and why I make after-dark excursions to distant Muggle abbeys. I merely smile at him enigmatically. After all, I’m not convinced his mistaken belief that I’m allying myself with some new up-and-coming Dark Wizard, or angling for the title myself, is entirely unhelpful given the request I plan to make of him.

“So, how is Marilla?” I ask. “I hear she . . .”

Carrow leans forward, clutching the edge of the table with both hands and managing to drag the tablecloth an inch or two closer to his lap in his eagerness. I grab at my wine glass before it can topple over.

“Draco,” he whispers urgently, glancing around furtively for suspected interlopers. “You can tell me. You know you can. This is me you’re talking to. Alberic Carrow. Your old friend.”

I’ve just finished the bisque (which was delicious, and I must remember to tell Bobbin to inform the chef of that fact). I lean back in my chair and dab my mouth with my serviette, all the while keenly aware of Carrow’s gaze. It is intense, almost sexual, in its covetousness, its naked greed. I should know after all, having been, for most of my life, the object of many such gazes. I’m suddenly tempted to slide a hand down my chest and into my lap, but I suspect it’s not my cock in his mouth that Carrow wants. Similar perhaps, but not the same.

I smile at him and watch as his face visibly brightens. Never let it be said that I don’t know a man who wants to be led like a dog when I see one.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Alberic . . .”

He shakes his head violently.

“Don’t do this to me, Draco,” he says in the same urgent whisper. “Please. Don’t _do_ this to me. Do you know how _long_ I’ve been waiting? Kissing the arses of bureaucrats and minor functionaries? Biding my time, waiting for someone with the fucking _balls_ to come along? I’m not getting any younger, and this charade . . . it’s bloody well sucking the life out of me!”

Our soup bowls vanish and a platter of prime rib and roast potatoes appears.

“Green beans?” I ask, holding the bowl out to him.

He merely blinks at me. “Huh? Oh. Yes, please.”

I watch as he pauses in his soliloquy on thwarted ambition to heap his plate with food and then drown it in gravy.

“Draco,” he says around a mouthful of Yorkshire pudding. “You could be great. Greater than that fuck-twat of a Minister we’ve got. Hell, you could even be greater than that tosser Potter. I mean, look at him! Running around fucking Mongolia chasing Dark Wizards with Cheering Charms or whatever the hell it is that he does.”

I lift my glass and swirl the wine lazily, watching the richness of its colour, its luxuriant crimson, reflect the candlelight.

“They say that Potter is a powerful wizard,” I say, my tone deliberately bland. “More powerful than Voldemort ever was.”

Carrow spears a potato with his fork and reaches across the table to swab it in the meat drippings, smattering the tablecloth with rust-coloured blood as he returns it to his mouth and crams it in, chewing enthusiastically.

“Then he’s even more of an arse and an idiot than I thought,” he says, spraying bits of food with every word. “To waste a gift like that. Like I said. A tosser.”

A sudden vision of Harry sitting at his desk in the Kensington flat appears in my mind, his fringe sticking up and a quill tucked ridiculously behind his ear as he memorizes some new spell that he’ll be able to do the first time he tries – and wandless for that matter. I grit my teeth against the retort I’m dying to make and take a sip of wine instead.

“Alberic,” I say at last. “You seem to be making certain . . . assumptions about me that, regardless of their accuracy, are irrefutably provocative, and – in some circles at least – outright defamatory.”

Carrow gives me a look that suggests that I’ve just made all his dreams come true, and I suppress a smile. After all, I have told him absolutely nothing, and it is he who has read into my noncommittal words exactly what he wants to hear. But at the same time that it amuses me, I also find it unspeakably wearisome. Like so many men, Carrow believes that what he has to offer compensates for that which he asks, when in fact what he’s offering is nothing more than trussed up greed or lust or the selfish hunger to submit to someone he believes to be more powerful than himself. Such men come to me all the time, and they come to me for three things: money, sex or power. And sometimes they want a mixture of all three. I have no doubt that it was the same for my father, and perhaps he’d grown to despise it as much as I do. But then again, we’re different men, my father and me. And, moreover, I have Harry. I highly doubt my father could claim to have been so fortunate as to have found anyone to love with _his_ black heart.

“I assure you Draco – Lord Malfoy, I mean . . .” Carrow dips his heads in a slight bow that is meant to be a dignified gesture of subordination but which, under the circumstances, is nothing but a grotesque mockery of respect. “. . . you can count on my absolute discretion.”

Both of us have finished our meals, myself far less fervently (and messily) than he. Our dinner plates vanish leaving behind my poor abused tablecloth, which resembles a virgin bride’s sheets on the morning after her wedding night. Carrow looks around hopefully, and I can only imagine that it’s dessert he seeks. But unfortunately for him, he’s destined for disappointment. My tongue only touches sugar in Harry’s presence, despite the fact that I love it almost as much as he does. It’s a little bit of asceticism that I’ve indulged in ever since the first time Harry and I shared a meal together, just the two of us. It was a week to the night I’d invited him to my dungeon that second time – a week after we’d first kissed and I’d decided to tell Astoria (as soon as I could discover in which part of the Manor she was encamped) that I wanted a divorce. He Owled me an invitation to dinner at his Kensington flat. I will never forget how I felt, standing in the entrance hall, preparing to Apparate. Nervous and almost faint with anticipation, although not over the prospect of sex. After all, Harry and I had already done things with each other that neither of us had done with anyone else, unless you include making love face-to-face, which was something I was definitely counting on doing that night – which I’d _promised_ him we’d do. No, my nervousness had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the fact that Harry and I would be sitting next to each other, doing mundane things like eating and drinking and _talking_ – things that I’ve done with countless people but _never_ with Harry Potter and especially not a Harry Potter in whose arse my fist had been buried past the wrist and who’d called me “Daddy” while he begged me to fuck him. The closest we’d ever come to such everyday things as eating and drinking and conversing was at Hogwarts or at separate tables at Ministry functions and charity dinners, and those times never included doing all three at the same time (or, in the case of Hogwarts, doing them with a modicum of civility). What would we say to each other? What if there was nothing more than the sex, intense and revelatory as it was? I’d Apparated to the small and sparsely furnished – but immaculately tidy – flat, expecting awkward greetings and a weird kiss on the cheek and instead found myself enveloped in acrid fumes, the remorseless screech of a Muggle smoke detector, and a sea of vituperation so colourful and descriptive that it would have made a sailor blush. Harry didn’t even realise I’d arrived for several minutes as he wrestled whatever it was he’d been cooking out of the oven, and when he did notice me it was to say, “Well, fuck. Hope you’re not hungry.” Fortunately, I was too nervous to be hungry, and he’d made a perfectly flawless tiramisu that was chilling in the fridge along with a bottle of cheap (but not bad) pinot blanco. So my first introduction to the non-erotic aspects of Harry’s life involved running around opening every window in his flat. And then all of the smoke and the running around had required a bath, and a bath had required the uncorking of that bottle of pinot blanco, and then the combination of all of the above had required making love with Harry until the water chilled to the point of discomfort and our fingertips had shrivelled to prunes, and we were both of us famished. So that’s how I found myself – three hours after standing in the Manor’s entrance hall in a set of bespoke pashima robes, near sick with anxiety – sitting in a t-shirt and a pair of borrowed pyjama bottoms at a table barely big enough for four, eating the most amazing tiramisu I’d ever tasted straight from the pan and watching the light of a single candle dance across Harry’s face as we talked about _everything_ , as though we’d known each other forever. Which, of course, we had. But nothing like this. Nothing _at all_ like this.

The memory of our first night together dissipates at the sound of Carrow clearing his throat. He’s watching me expectantly.

“I’m afraid I can’t offer you dessert,” I tell him. “But perhaps we can make that excursion to my study?” I rise from my chair and throw my linen serviette on the table.

“Of course,” says Carrow. “Excellent meal, by the way. But then why would I expect anything less given my host for the evening?”

I smirk internally at his naked flattery, his Hufflepuffness. Given his ham-fisted political manoeuvring, I’m surprised he’d come as close as he had to being offered the Mark. But then again, the longer the War dragged on, the less discriminating Voldemort became, needing nothing so much as warm bodies to throw in front of the Order’s _Avada Kedavras_. Nonetheless, that closeness to power had given Carrow access to the thing I want from him now.

On the way to the study, he pauses to admire the paintings in the hall, most of which are of Wizarding in origin but not all. He stops before one by Nicholas Roerich that Harry and I purchased just this past summer in St. Petersburg. He clasps his hands behind his back and leans forward to view the brush strokes. I move close enough that our shoulders bump together.

“Stravinsky’s _The Rite of Spring_ ,” I say, and he jumps at discovering my proximity.

“Ah!” he says, and I watch with disinterested amusement as he struggles not to back away from me too quickly.

“This painting was done as a study for his stage set for the Ballets Russes’ premiere performance.”

He gives me the vaguely panicked look of someone who hasn’t a clue what I’m talking about.

“Not much of a connoisseur of that Muggle stuff,” he says. “Nice painting, though. Looks very . . . uh . . . springy. And, of course, expensive.” Now that he’s moved away a safe distance, he obviously feels comfortable enough to wink at me knowingly.

It’s entirely immaterial whether I’m making him uncomfortable because I’m a wealthy lord or a homosexual or an infinitely more powerful wizard than he is. What’s important is simply that he’s uncomfortable. His gratitude for being permitted to escape unscathed will place him in my debt.

We reach my study, and I make sure he sees me light a fire in the hearth without my wand. I also make sure he sees me unclasp my formal robes and remove them in a calculated swirl of exquisitely expensive hand-woven Thai silk. He must be thinking right now that he really hasn’t the faintest idea why I’ve invited him here. He’s the fourth such guest so far this week, and he won’t be the last. By now my performance is virtually flawless. I can practically read his mind without the aid of _Legilimency_.

“Single malt or blended?”

Carrow clears his throat again. It’s obviously a nervous tic. “Whatever you’re having is fine,” he says.

I purse my lips, pretending to think for a moment. “What year were you born, Alberic?”

He shifts in his chair, frowning slightly. “1982,” he says and then pauses. “Why do you ask?”

I turn to him, my face impassive but for a single arched eyebrow.

“Not that I mind you asking,” he stammers in an effort to clarify himself.

I turn away from him and open the impressive liquor cabinet my grandfather had built before my father was born. Bigger than a walk-in closet and lined end to end with oak shelves, it contains select Scotch whiskies from every year going back to 1971.

“1982 did you say? Ah. Here we are. Linlithgow. A fine distillery.”

I pull the bottle off the shelf and hold it up to the light. It is, indeed, a fine distillery and an excellent year, and I find myself loath to waste it on a man who probably drinks nothing but Firewhisky, cut with soda no less. Now, if Harry were here . . . .

“Ice or water?”

He shifts again and drags his finger around his collar. Even for an idiot like Carrow, the import of the fact that he’s about to drink a 200-Galleon glass of whiskey can’t be lost on him.

“I’ll have mine whichever way you’re having yours,” he says.

Merlin! What a compliant little lamb he is! There’s not even enough fight in him to make it interesting.

I take my time pouring our drinks. I want to give him an ample opportunity to look around, to notice the hundreds of banned books on the Dark Arts, the amulets encased in glass, the Dead Candles, the Hand of Glory. If my dungeon is where I break men sexually, then my study is where I break them mentally. I crack the wax seal on the Linlithgow, failing to suppress a sigh of regret. A bottle of Scotch, while not ruined, per se, is never the same after it’s been opened. The last time Harry visited me at the Manor – just before he’d left England for St. Petersburg – we’d polished off a newly opened bottle from Mannochmore’s oldest distillery. Not in one night, of course! Getting drunk on fine Scotch is an unthinkable heresy. But over the course of four days. When I’d first broken the seal, like I’m doing now, I’d immediately poured Harry a shot and had him swirl the whiskey around his mouth before spitting it out. It’s the way an expert tastes. For something that rare – that exquisite – swallowing is almost a vulgarity. It’s the initial taste that matters, that first bloom of intense flavour so powerful it marries aroma and sapour in a single moment. I watched him where he sat, exactly where Carrow is now, before the fire, his shirt unbuttoned far enough that I could have slid it off one of his shoulders, exposing a nipple, blood dark in the uneven flame-licked shadows. I watched him close his eyes and inhale deeply when he took a sip, lost in the sensuality of the experience. He’d looked so beautiful, so utterly ravished and debauched, and I hadn’t even touched him yet. I grew so hard just watching him that when I finally crossed the room to straddle his lap, he’d been unable to miss the fact of my hopeless arousal. And when I kissed his mouth, my senses were overcome with the taste of burnt caramel and peat smoke and malt and _Harry_ , and I’d frotted us to orgasm, our tongues entwined, drinking each other, drinking down every whiskey-soaked moan . . .

I feel a stab of hunger flare in my belly, primal and intense, and not for the first time I wish with all my heart that I could summon Harry to me like I _Accio_ my wand. Our time together in St. Petersburg did nothing to sate my desire for him; if anything my desire was increased, as it always seems to be. How I can only grow to want – to _need_ – Harry more every time I see him is beyond me. I’d have thought that long ago my capacity to desire him would plateau or even slacken. But no. And, perhaps – when all is said and done – alas.

I hand Carrow his drink and see that his gaze is drawn, probably despite himself, to the warm black silk of my shirt and the way the firelight gleams in it as though I, myself, were made of flame. He swallows a shamefully large mouthful of my expensive Scotch, looking vaguely panicked.

“So,” he says uneasily. “Is there a reason you . . . Is there something I can do for you, Draco?”

I sit down in the chair across from him and settle in to watch him for a long uncomfortable moment. At first he holds my gaze with a nervous little smile on his lips. And then he drops it. And then he looks at the fire and then back at me, the nervous little smile growing more nervous by the second.

“Yes,” I say at last. “In fact there is something you can do for me.”

His gaze is both expectant and fearful. A dog waiting to be kicked and perhaps even desiring the blow. It’s fortunate – for _both_ of us – that I no longer get off on the kind of power he’s offering me.

“I want the mirror,” I say, “and you know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

His face is a study in conflicting emotions. Relief, disappointment, fear, desire, and rage pass over his features like the shadows of clouds over snow. I know without having to ask that the fact that he has Voldemort’s mirror is his most guarded secret and possibly the last remaining brick in the foundation of his entire identity as a thwarted Dark Wizard in an exile of arse-kissing. He gives this up, and he has nothing left worth offering. Nothing to bring to the table when I or some other Dark Lord starts assigning posts in an army of minions.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve effectively blackmailed him. A sentence in Azkaban would be too merciful a punishment for the knowing and willful possession for more than fifteen years of the last remaining Dark Artefact from the War.

I smile at him unkindly. There can be no mistake in his mind that I will accept nothing short of that for which I’ve asked.

“Of course,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s the least I can do, but I trust his lordship will remember it when the time comes.”

I merely nod and lift my glass in a – belated – toast. “Excellent. I’ll be by to fetch it tomorrow.”

“Fine. I live at . . .”

“I know where you live, Alberic,” I say and smile when he flinches. “Will noon work for you?”

He looks vaguely ill.

“Sure,” he says and downs the last of his Scotch in a single gulp.

 

That night I dream of Harry.

We’re in a city, walking along a river. It could be the Neva or the Elliõaá or the Lagan or the Someşul Mic. It could even be the Thames. Dusk is falling, and the street lights shine on the slender limbs of leafless trees, on the cold dark water lapping at the granite quay sides. I can smell snow in the air, but I sense it doesn’t matter, that wherever it is that we’re headed is warm and brightly lit and safe from the elements. I let my hand brush against Harry’s as we walk, and he seizes it, twining our fingers together. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of white and turn to see a single swan floating alongside a stone stairway that descends into the water. The swan’s beak is as black as ebony and just as shiny. Harry notices it, too, and stops.

 _“I think there is something that I forgot,”_ he says, his tone musing and distracted. He releases my hand, turning toward the river and the dark, icy stairs. I grab at his arm.

 _“We’ll be late!”_ I say even though I have no idea where we’re going or what it is we might be late to. On the far bank, the sky is dotted with the open flames of an oil refinery, and somewhere in the distance a train whistle sounds. It starts to snow.

 _“I won’t be gone long,”_ he says. _“Wait for me here.”_

He turns and heads for the stairs. Suddenly, I’m terrified.

 _“Harry!”_ I call, trying in vain to make my voice sound more exasperated than frightened. He reaches the stairs and turns to face me, gripping the metal railings as though he were entering a swimming pool on a June afternoon and not a river on a winter’s night.

 _“I won’t be gone long,”_ he says again.

He steps backward and suddenly vanishes. I run to the river’s edge, practically flinging myself against the railing, but there’s nothing there. No stairs, no swan. And no Harry. I wake, my chest slicked in sweat and a sick feeling of dread in my stomach. It stays with me through the day despite Carrow’s uncomplicated surrender of the mirror and a minor break-through with my translation of the _Volkhovnik_. All day I sense something is wrong, and no matter how many times I tell myself it’s the dream tainting my perception, the feeling of unease remains.

 

That sense turns to certainty when I walk in the front door to find Bobbin waiting for me.

The house-elves know better than to waylay me the second I get home. But when Bobbin tells me a Mr Neville Longbottom and a Ms Hermione Granger Weasley-Longbottom are waiting for me in the library, I know not only is there something wrong, but I am about to have my guts pulled out, hand-over-hand, while I beg for a quick death to some cold and indifferent star.

I thank Bobbin, much to her surprise, and ask her, if she has not already done so, to please offer our guests something with which to refresh themselves. As soon as she Disapparates, I remove my gloves. Finger by finger. Feeling the leather separate from skin like the end of a kiss. My every sense is heightened to the point of pain. I see, perhaps for the first time, the care and skill with which someone – long dead – had carved the acanthuses that crown the pillars framing the entrance to the south-facing drawing room. _How beautiful_ , I muse, my attention focusing to the exclusion of all else on the slender leaves with their impossibly-delicate veins. I pull my arms from the sleeves of my coat and unbutton my jacket, feeling the air collide with the thin cloth of my shirt and the flaming skin beneath. _I must be ill_ , I think absently. _A bit of a fever perhaps_ . . . .

I watch myself drape my coat over the arm of the settee and walk with the utmost care toward the drawing room and the library beyond. I am struck by the way my hair, so much longer than I’m used to, appears to glimmer against the dark wool of my jacket. And suddenly I understand! It has all been a dream, a very long dream. But now I’m awake, and this tall serious-faced man walking proudly away from me, is, of course, my father. And if I were to look down at my hands, they would be pale and soft and smooth. Almost without lines. The hands of a child. The hands of someone with everything yet to lose still ahead of him.

When my hand and the hand of the serious-faced man simultaneously touch the latch of the library door, the two perspectives collide again in a burst of blinding light that stabs behind my eyes like an ice-pick. I feel the first wave of nausea and swallow it back viciously. I realise that I don’t know what I’m going to do, what might happen, when I enter this room. This room that has always been my quiet sanctuary. It’s an alarming feeling. I rarely surprise myself, and when I do it’s always because of . . . 

Longbottom is standing by the fireplace, his hand resting on top of the mantel and his head bowed. He turns when I enter. My eyes are drawn to his face to such an extent that the room darkens around the edges like a piece of burning parchment until all I can see is that long pale sorrowful face. Only distantly, as though over an unchartable expanse of time and space, am I aware of Granger standing and reaching out a hand . . .

I feel myself shaking my head, and it must look comical – like the histrionic gesture of a child who’s been told he has to go to bed when he doesn’t want to – because the room is suddenly spinning, and I’m seeing too many sides of it all at once. And I must have stumbled because suddenly Longbottom is at my side, his fingers on my arm vice-like in their strength. He’s dragging me toward the sofa, but there’s something wrong with my legs. I keep stumbling. It’s only a matter of time before I fall . . . 

“Draco.”

I have never hated the sound of my own name with such excruciating intensity as I do in that moment when Granger finally speaks.

“How?”

The word is a burr of razor wire as it leaves my throat. I’m almost surprised, when it finally emerges, that it’s not accompanied by a rush of blood and torn flesh.

Silence and then Longbottom’s voice.

“We don’t know.”

And here’s the moment I’ve been waiting for. Like a man pulled beneath the surface of a freezing lake and dragged to the bottom, only to be released and permitted to swim back to the pinprick of light, my anger bursts from my chest.

“ _You. Don’t. Know?_ ”

I grind out each word with a separate and distinct breath. “ _You don’t know? How. Can. That. Be?_ ” With an explosion that I scarcely even register, several panes in the floor-to-ceiling window at the far end of the library vanish in a glittering mist.

Longbottom and Granger exchange desperate glances, and I almost laugh out loud. Suddenly we’re back at Hogwarts, and the unutterably _stupid_ Gryffindors are once again tongue-tied. I expect the Weasel to barge in any second, bellowing about something or another, despite the fact he’s been dead for fifteen years. And then there will be one or more of his litter-mates and then McGonagall and then Dumbledore and then, if we just wait long enough, just a little while longer, Harry bleeding Potter, himself, will walk in like he owns the place and . . . . .

The breath I attempt to draw into my lungs is a knife of ice-cold steel. I gag on it and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is the moment that it hits me. The knowledge that Harry is dead. The knife-breath slides down my throat and begins probing around. I can feel it – it’s search for my heart. And if there were such a thing as the Muggle God, and if He were merciful, the moment the blade finally finds and pierces that poor organ, the blood will start flowing and not stop until I’m dead, too.

I feel hands on me. They’re everywhere. As though a crowd of people has entered my library and all of them are trying to touch me all at once. The hands are easing me down onto the floor and loosening my tie. They’re unbuttoning the collar of my shirt and turning me onto my side when I start coughing and retching and _wailing_. And when there’s nothing left in my stomach, the hands wipe my mouth with a cool damp cloth and push the sweat-drenched hair from my face. If I weren’t still alive and _unspeakably_ bitter at that fact, I’d feel grateful to the hands. The gentle hands lifting my head and holding a glass to my lips. The gentle hands making the whole world go silent. And then dark.

[](http://frayach.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/363/57660)


	5. Chapter 5

Morning. I am standing in a vacant car park in an ugly city. The pavement beneath my feet is cracked. Tufts of grass poke through here and there, catching bits of rubbish on their wind-blown journey and holding them before a strong enough gust comes along and tears them away. A discarded newspaper flaps in the breeze like the wing of an injured bird. In the gaps between the grey concrete high-rise buildings, the sky is faintly yellow and crisscrossed with telephone wires. A poorly stitched seam between night and day. A draining wound. It is all so beautiful that I find that I can hardly breathe. Thousands of small nondescript brown starlings suddenly take flight, moving in a graceful wayward mass like a sheet drying on the line gets caught in the wind.

I have never been alone. I know this now.

Arms encircle my waist and pull me back against the solid warm presence of a body. I look down at the hands clasped above my belt buckle. At the simple unadorned band of purest silver on the left ring finger.

“It was all just a dream.”

Harry’s voice.

“But it’s over now.”

I am engulfed in a tidal wave of mingled loss and relief. His words are the sharpest, sweetest blow he’s ever dealt me.

“When I release you, you’ll be able to stand,” he says. “You won’t need me to support you anymore.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. The sun has risen almost entirely above the tenuous line of the horizon. Its light catches on the shards of broken bottles, and it feels as though someone has casually littered the pavement with diamonds, cast them about like seeds on barren ground. Too bright. Too sharp. Too _much_. I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter.

“But I’m not ready,” I whisper.

“Yes, you are,” he replies, his breath warm in my ear. “You are stronger than you think. You always have been.”

At some point, I’ve begun to tremble. I feel my nostrils flare on each inhalation. I know now what to expect – what his gentle caresses have been leading to.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please don’t.”

He sighs.

“We both know this is what you want, Draco. What you’ve been preparing for all your life. Don’t fight it.”

“But it _isn’t_ ,” I whisper pleadingly. “It hasn’t been for years. Don’t hurt me.”

He kisses my neck with such naked reverence that I feel my heart seize up in a fist before blooming open like a rose in a sudden gasp for blood and oxygen. I open my eyes and am confronted with a fully risen sun and an impossibly new day.

“You’ll beg, won’t you?” Harry murmurs, the authority present in his words regardless of the kindness he portrays.

“Yes,” I say clearly. “Yes.”

He slides the hand wearing the ring up my chest, slowly but deliberately, until he cradles my chin in his fingertips with cruel tenderness, as though I am incomprehensibly delicate. As though I am a precious stone set and held for display in his hand.

“Say it,” he breathes against my neck. “Say ‘Please don’t hurt me, Harry.’”

I squeeze my eyes shut again, my heart stuttering in my chest with terror and desire and the anticipation of pain.

“ . . .rry . . .” I gasp.

“I didn’t quite catch that,” he tells me, letting his hand slide round the back of my head to hold it in place, to force me to look at him when I make my reply.

Eventually, after much swallowing and a few shaky breaths, I hold his eye contact and say, in the most deferential tone I can muster, “Please, Harry.”

He shoots me a genuine, pure smile, and he doesn’t bother to minimise it. So, I say it again, surer this time.

“Please don’t hurt me, Harry. _Please_.”

The blow comes with a _crack_ \- like lightning striking too close or a crowd of people Apparating all at once. Yet I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.

My eyes fly open, and still there is nothing. No desire. No pain. Just an absence, a cavity so deep and vast it defies measurement and quantification.

I am in my bed at the Manor, and my mother is sitting in the armchair by the fire, reading one of her dainty calfskin-bound romance novels. The gilt on the edges of the pages gleams listlessly in the light of the low fire. She turns towards me when she hears me stir. Her smile is wan and sad and all-too-familiar. I’m reminded suddenly of those long-ago months spent as prisoners in our own home and how I’d watched her imperial beauty dim before my very eyes.

She lays her book on the kettle stand and rises slowly to her feet. I wonder fleetingly how long she’s been sitting there. She looks stiff and tired and very much her age. She crosses to my bed and sits carefully, resting her cupped palm against my face. I feel the mattress dip slightly beneath her weight. If it weren’t for the lines in her face and the weariness with which age and care and death have infused her blue eyes, I would swear I was a child again. Sick with a fever perhaps and yearning for the assurance of her touch.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

I just stare at her face, at the wisps of blonde hair escaping the elegant jade combs, at the pale brow creased with concern.

“Are Longbottom and Granger still here?” I croak, my voice feeling as unused and unfamiliar as a rusted hinge on an old door.

“No, but . . . Hermione . . . said she would be back later.”

I almost smile at the will it obviously requires her to refer to Granger by her first name. If the indicators were lacking up to this point (which they aren’t), it would have been a dead give-away that things are not as they should be. What did they tell her, I wonder? Did they tell her that her only son’s lover – his whole reason for living – had died alone in a faded city so distant that it is beyond the ability of even the most powerful wizard to Apparate there in a single trip? Had they told her how he’d begged for them to kill him, too? How he’d wept like a condemned man at their inevitable refusal?

“You should eat something,” she says.

I merely nod. By the flicker of alarm I see pass through her eyes, I can tell she hadn’t expected my acquiescence. And that, more than anything – more than my undoubtedly wretched appearance and my voice torn and hoarse from keening my grief – brings home to her the full extent of my bereavement. If she thought she ever knew me, she must suspect – in this moment – that she never really did, and if I had any tears left to shed, I would weep for her.

She turns her face away from me so that all I can see is her profile.

“You loved him.”

It is not a question, but even if it were I cannot answer her. No single word could possibly contain all it is that I feel for Harry. All it was that we’d had together.

“There’s a public service this afternoon. One of those huge Ministry affairs. A whole roster of speakers. Including that insufferable prig of a Minister . . .”

Her voice trails off. We both know I won’t be going. The fire snaps and pops comfortingly in the silence, and the clock on the mantel somehow keeps ticking off its heavy seconds. Despite the fact the world has ended. At least for me, it has, and I realise suddenly that this must be one of the many killing blows that grief can deal - severing you from the rest of humanity with one clean stroke of a shining blade, scalpel-sharp and merciless. All over the world, people are sitting down at tables and office desks, laughing at jokes and worrying about jobs and children and lovers and money. But not me. Not me. I’ll be lucky if I can simply remember how to swallow. How to draw my next breath. Because even that hurts more than anything I’ve ever known. Or could have imagined.

“Draco,” she says at last, turning her face back to me and reaching for my hand. “There’s no body.”

Without a cue from my brain, my own body responds to her words. I roll on to my side and curl around my stomach as though they were physical blows rather than sounds. Harry’s _body_. That’s what she’s talking about. Not Harry, but Harry’s _body_ as though the two became separated in a crowd. As though his body were something Harry could lose, that he could put down some place and forget where he’d left it. I’m overwhelmed by the cruelty of death’s semantics, their ability to sever unseverable things. Like Harry from his body. After all, I should know. I should _bloody well know_.

“Listen to me,” she whispers harshly, seizing my chin and dragging my face up to meet her eyes. “Listen to me, Draco Lucius Malfoy. Never, in the long history of your family, has one of your ancestors _ever_ mourned a spouse or a child or a parent without a body. _Ever_.”

Suddenly the memory of the conversation Harry and I had in St. Petersburg about Sirius Black comes rushing back to me.

“Unless they’ve been disowned,” I say bitterly.

“For all their faults, and I’m not trying to minimise them, believe me, the Malfoys are not the Blacks. For better or for worse. And I’m talking about your father’s family.”

She releases my chin and smoothes the hair back from my face, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

“Draco, my darling, my _baby_ . . . promise me . . .” Her voice breaks, and she turns away from me again. “Promise me that you’ll wait to decide if this is what will kill you until you’ve found him. Promise me.”

Only twice in my life have I seen my mother cry, and the memory of both occasions is seared into my mind like a brand. After everything we’ve been through together, I owe her this much, at least. I reach out and take her hand.

“All right,” I croak. “All right.”

She wipes her eyes and stares unseeingly at the fire.

“Thank you,” she says at last and squeezes my fingers. “I’ll have the chef make us a full breakfast. None of this toast and tea business. After all, you’ll need your strength for your trip to Siberia.”

 

Granger arrives halfway through our meal, and Bobbin brings her to the breakfast room without a single word of needless introduction. My mother must have given specific instructions that the Master should not be spoken to unless absolutely necessary.

My mother stands graciously as Granger enters, and surprise flickers over Granger’s worn and exhausted features for a brief moment before they settle once more into an expression of self-defensive blandness.

“Please join us, Ms. Longbottom. It is rather a late breakfast, and I’m sure you’ve eaten already, but you are more than welcome to anything you’d like. Seeing as it’s nearly noon, could I offer you some sandwiches? A salad perhaps?”

“Thank you, but I’m really not hungry,” says Granger. “A cup of tea would be lovely, though, if it isn’t too much bother.”

“Not at all,” says my mother. “I’ll see to it myself.”

Given that there is a full pot of tea on the table and even if there wasn’t, that Bobbin could fetch one in the blink of an eye, my mother’s offer is clearly designed to give me and Granger privacy. I muster the tiniest of grateful smiles, and she rests her hand on my shoulder for a brief second before gliding swiftly and silently from the room.

The late-morning sunlight is as thin and cheerless as watery milk. It falls on Granger’s face, revealing swollen eyes and the lingering shadows of grief. And from the way she’s returning my gaze, I must assume that I don’t look any better. But I cannot say for sure, having shattered every mirror in the Manor (save the one in the chest in my study) with a single flick of my wand. The mere thought of encountering my reflection had made getting out of bed seem an impossible effort. For ten years I have looked upon my own face as a canvas, as a painting that Harry’s presence in my life had rendered sentient and perhaps even beautiful. He was the sculptor of my happiness, his hands on my skin were like the stonecutter’s blade – revealing in inanimate cold marble the living, blood-hot shape of a human body. But with the artist gone . . .

Granger is still standing in the doorway, her face full of anguish and discomfort. I gesture for her to take the seat across from me, and a place setting of my grandmother’s elegant gold-leaf morning china appears before her. She stares at the delicate cup and paper-thin plates with the dazed expression of someone who hasn’t slept recently and for whom the most commonplace things have been rendered an unfathomable mystery.

“Neville went back this morning,” she says at last. “To St. Petersburg, I mean.”

I nod, and we sit in a rather uneasy silence for several moments.

“I don’t suppose you’re going this afternoon . . .”

“No, and I don’t suppose you are, either,” I reply.

She starts at the sound of my voice, at the surety and strength of it. Her eyes are wide for a moment before they narrow suspiciously.

“What are you planning?” she asks.

I consider feigning ignorance for a moment, but I have no energy to waste on game-playing. Especially not with Granger, who, despite her opinions on my worthiness, could not have failed to see over the years what Harry meant to me, what I would have done for him.

“I’m going to Irkutsk.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

She stares at me. A fresh pot of tea has appeared on the table in front of her, and she quietly pours herself a cup.

“The squad won’t want you there.”

“No offence, but the squad can go fuck themselves.”

She winces but doesn’t reprimand me.

“Why do you think going to Irkutsk is a good idea, Draco? I mean, what do you hope to accomplish there? If you want Mefodiy dead, you’ll just be duplicating the squad’s efforts. Because, believe me, they are _itching_ to make him bleed. They won’t even think of coming back until he’s dead.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Mefodiy,” I say. “I’m going for Harry.”

Granger furrows her brows and shakes her head sadly.

“Harry’s dead, Draco.”

“So you tell me.” I can feel my voice quavering on the razor’s edge between raging fury and blinding grief. “But I have something to give him, and I will not rest until I do.”

She stares at me as though I’ve gone insane, watching with a kind of fascinated dread as I reach into the pocket of my robes and pull forth a small ebony box. I set it on the table with a resounding _thwack_.

“Draco . . .” she says anxiously, her eyes brimming with tears. “Please don’t do this to yourself. Please.”

“Go on,” I say levelly. Watching the avalanche of emotion in her eyes is oddly soothing. It makes me feel less alone. “Take a look.”

She shakes her head mutely as the tears start spilling down her cheeks. I pretend not to notice her refusal.

“I made it myself, you know.” I chuckle mirthlessly. “Bet you didn’t know that ‘jeweller’ was one of my hidden talents, did you? Well, believe it or not, Granger, there are a lot of things you don’t know about me. But in this particular case you would not have been wrong. After all, I hardly made this the traditional way . . .”

“Draco. . .” She’s sobbing now, her shoulders heaving under her plain-cut robes and her breath hitching in her chest. She drops her face into her hands. “Please don’t do this . . .” Her voice is muffled, but its plaintive plea is clear enough.

“Look at me, Granger.”

She raises her head reluctantly and watches as though through a trance as I unbutton my robes and then the shirt underneath.

“See this?” I say, tearing off the bandage and pointing to the open wound above my left nipple, the gash from which I carved out a three-inch by one-inch strip of flesh, deep enough to reach muscle. She flinches when the blood starts to flow freely, unhindered by cotton and plaster, but her eyes remain glued to the crimson trail marring the pallor of my chest and soaking like wine spilled on a tablecloth into the white linen of my shirt.

“ _This_ is the ring that will adorn Harry’s cold dead finger when I lay him in the ground,” I say, my voice steady and low and fierce. “This is the ring I should have had the fucking balls to give him ages ago, and which I will see that he’s buried in if it’s the last fucking thing I do on this earth, Granger. And it might be. It very well might fucking be.”

I reach out and open the box, my bloody fingers slipping on the fine-grained wood, to reveal the band of purest virgin silver nestled on a bed of white satin. Granger gasps.

“Transfiguring human flesh is Dark Magic, Draco!”

“And you think that matters _one fucking iota_ to me, Hermione?” I spit her name back at her. The first time I’ve ever used it. She starts to cry again.

“Perhaps you mistook me for a good person?” I hiss. “Someone who abides by the rules no matter what and doesn’t complain. Or maybe not. Maybe this is what you thought all along, and I’m just confirming it. Well, it doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, we _all_ have dark corners in our hearts and lines that we’d cross in a fucking _heartbeat_ if we had to. I may be many things – a coward among them – but I am not a hypocrite. Harry will wear my ring. And I, Granger, will wear his.”

I watch dispassionately as she pushes her chair back from the table and stands unsteadily, her complexion bloodless as tallow, before turning to retch into her cupped hands. Slowly, deliberately, I button my shirt. I haven’t bothered with a new bandage, and the blood blooms against the cloth like a rose – right in the place where my heart should be.

 

The will is easy enough to revise. Everything to my mother for the remainder of her life and after that to Longbottom and Granger-Weasley-Longbottom and the heirs of their bodies, with the special condition that they burn the Manor to the ground after stripping it of anything of value. I couldn’t care less what happens to my family’s possessions, but I will be damned before someone other than a Malfoy (or a Potter) calls this place his home. And in the event they refuse, the estate reverts to Hogwarts, with the same condition.

“It is highly . . . irregular,” Barnabas says before blowing on the ink. Having witnessed our signatures, he dismisses his associates with a curt “see you back at the office.”

“What is? Leaving everything to a blood traitor, a Mudblood and their brood? Or asking them to burn the Manor down before they may inherit a penny?”

“Both, I suppose.”

Barnabas leans back in his chair and regards me closely.

“I’ve attested to your being of sound mind and body, Draco, but you’re starting to make me doubt my decision. Care to tell me why you summoned me here on an ‘urgent’ basis just to revise the will of a thirty-eight year-old man, who, last I knew, was in perfect health?”

He is my solicitor for a reason. I note that he has declined to mention the removal of Harry’s name. Not that you can leave an estate to a dead man, and I have no doubt Barnabas is well aware of the death of Harry Potter, but still he must wonder why I’d named Harry as my heir in the first place and with no conditions attached, either precedent or subsequent. Surely, he suspected that Harry and I were lovers, but now he will never know. A less . . . discreet . . . man would sacrifice tact and professionalism to curiosity, but not old Barnabas. I could kill a man and bury his body in the rose garden, and Barnabas wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He is truly a lawyer worth his weight in gold.

“Up your percentage to twenty percent,” I say suddenly. “Hell, take twenty-five if you want. You’re a good man, Barnabas. Care for a glass of Scotch? I opened the 1982 bottle of Linlithgow the other night for fucking Carrow, and it’ll go to waste if we don’t drink it.”

He nods and unbuttons his waistcoat. I stand and go to the liquor cabinet, focusing intently on every step, on finding the bottle with my trembling hand and sloshing the Scotch unceremoniously into the cut-glass tumblers.

“Ice or water?”

“Neither,” he says. “Why ruin a perfectly good glass of Scotch?”

I half-laugh and half-sob at his answer while he pretends not to notice.

“In addition to the twenty-five percent, you can have my bloody Scotch,” I say. “And you’d better enjoy it, too, you slimy equivocating bastard. Cheers.”

I hand him his glass, and we toast each other.

“I take it you’re going some place . . . exotic,” he says after a couple sips.

“Far away, yes. But exotic? Not so much. Depends on your definition of ‘exotic,’ I suppose.”

“Pack your long underwear,” he says, his face portraying not even a hint of acknowledgment.

“Barnabas, how on earth were you ever sorted into Hufflepuff?” I ask.

“Well, I’m a lawyer, aren’t I? And most lawyers – the good ones, at least – are prime Hufflepuff material. Never underestimate loyalty, Draco. Or avarice.”

I toast him again and down the rest of my Scotch in a single swallow.

“You’ll look after my mother,” I say, staring determinably into my empty glass. It’s not a question.

“Of course,” he says. “You know I will.”

My throat constricts, and it takes me several moments before I can thank him.

Barnabas stands and buttons his waistcoat. I help him into his cloak.

“It’s been a pleasure, Draco,” he says, extending his hand. “It always is.”

But before I can answer and assure him the feeling is mutual, he’s already gone.

 

I spend the evening systematically burning every piece of clothing I own.

I hadn’t really planned to spend my last night in Wiltshire decimating my wardrobe, but then again I hadn’t planned on doing much of anything except getting out of my head on opium and sleeping a dreamless sleep. But it is while I’m sitting shirtless in my last pair of black trousers and watching the flames lick at the frosted darkness that it comes to me. The squad is short one man, and I am the obvious replacement. Who else knows more about Mefodiy and Siberian magic? Who else would agree to drop everything and run off on a moment’s notice to Irkutsk? Who else doesn’t give a fuck if this is nothing more than a suicide mission? I actually laugh out loud. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? Not that this is the first time divine inspiration has struck like sweet smoke through the ivory mouthpiece of an opium pipe, but it just seems too obvious not to have occurred to me twenty-four hours ago. Here I’ve been, wracking my brains trying to think of a way to get close to Mefodiy, and the answer has been right in front of me the whole time.

I stand too quickly and fall to my knees, overwhelmed by dizziness and nausea. The night with its pale-limbed branches and dancing shadows whirls around me as though I and the fire are in the middle of a giant centrifuge. I watch, fascinated and utterly engrossed, as bits of linen float skywards like burning moths trying to escape the siren call of the candle’s flame. The night is cold, but my chest is slick with sweat and streaked with ash. Unbidden and unwanted, the memory of fucking Harry beside the Beltane fires rises between me and the destruction I’ve wrought. I squeeze my eyes shut, but still I see us, as though in a Pensieve, sprawled naked on the new grass. Harry’s chest is as flushed and streaked with sweat and ash as mine is now but not from the exertion of _Accioing_ every bit of clothing he owns more than a hundred yards and piling them in a heap. No, Harry’s skin is glowing from the effort of holding off a tidal wave of an orgasm until midnight despite the fact he’s buried to his balls in my arse. Through a miasma of opium and grief, I watch him grip my hips and pull me back up on to my knees and tighter against his groin. I watch myself struggle to spread my legs, arching my spine and throwing back my head on each inward thrust. I’m utterly wanton, and the look on Harry’s face is almost pained as he watches my body respond to his ministrations. There’s cut grass in our hair and stuck to our sweaty skin, and the fires on either side of us witness our slow undoing at each other’s hands. _Eadar dà theine Bhealltainn_. When Harry finally lets himself orgasm, he pulls out and pumps ropes of flame-kissed come over my back and buttocks and then grabs my hips and pulls me back flush against himself once again to grind his cock in the slippery heat of his come on my skin. All the while, he says nothing but “Draco.” Over and over, an incantation or a prayer, and it hits me like a curse, like _Sectumsempra_ to my heart, that I will never . . . _never_ . . . hear Harry say my name again.

And that, my friends, is when the last spark of humanity flees my body like a retreating ghost. Like a dream – forsaken and unremembered – upon waking.

_Farewell_.

 

  
Theo looked up when Neville entered the room and found himself thinking yet again that he had never, in all their years together, seen Neville looking this exhausted, this defeated. The freckles on his friend’s face stood out with almost hallucinatory clarity, and the skin beneath his eyes was shadowed and bruised-looking. Neville lowered himself gingerly into the chair like an old man, and Theo wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand. Say something comforting, or at the very least, not inane. But instead he merely said, “What the fuck does Malfoy want?”

Neville sighed and scrubbed his face in his palms.

“He wants to join the squad.”

Theo just stared at him.

“Excuse me.”

“I said, Malfoy wants to join the squad.”

“Yes, I heard that part but not the part about how he could think for even one second that we’d accept someone like him. I mean, Neville, the man is a Dark Lord waiting to happen!”

“I already know your opinion on this question, Theo, so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll forego the umpteenth recitation of your theories about Draco Malfoy. I’m tired, and I need to get some sleep.”

“So you told Malfoy to crawl back under the rock he came from, then?”

Neville stood and reached for his coat.

“No, I told him I’d consult with the rest of the squad and get back to him.”

“You _what?_ ”

Theo leapt from his seat, but Neville had already reached the door.

“Neville, where are you going?”

“For a walk,” he said. “Good night.”

“What was that all about?” Elizabeth asked from the chair in the corner. She set her book down, spine up, on the armrest.

Theo turned towards her, an incredulous expression on his face.

“Neville says Malfoy wants to join the squad, and he’s actually entertaining the possibility!”

“Hhhmmm. _That’s_ interesting,” she said.

“Which part? Malfoy wanting to join the squad or Neville not immediately telling him to take a fucking leap?”

“The former, actually. The latter doesn’t surprise me at all. The situation is far too complex and delicate for Neville to simply dismiss his offer out of hand. Besides, that’s not Neville’s style. He’s not an act-on-a-whim sort of bloke.”

There was a moment of silence between them, and Theo sensed they were both thinking the same thing: how different Neville was from Harry and how well the two of them had balanced each other out.

“So, what do you find so quote-unquote ‘interesting’ about Malfoy wanting to join the squad?”

Elizabeth stood from her chair and came over to the table where Theo was sitting. He’d been doing a Muggle jigsaw puzzle of the Winter Palace, and she absently tried a few pieces before giving up.

“Don’t bother,” Theo grumbled. “I think they purposely left out a piece to drive the person who purchases it slowly insane.”

“You could always just transfigure a cracker or something into the missing piece,” she suggested.

“If I did that, I’d never be able to convince myself not to do it again in the future when I was stuck and frustrated. It’s a fucking slippery slope, O’Malley, and once you’ve started down that cheating-at-jigsaw-puzzle road, it’s hard to turn back.”

Elizabeth smiled at him half-heartedly.

“Always the philosopher, Theo. But isn’t there the chance that you could just cheat once? Out of dire need? And then distinguish all future circumstances on the basis of necessity?”

Theo snorted, trying another piece and tossing it aside when it inevitably refused to fit.

“You talk as though people can’t convince themselves of just about anything. There have to be _rules_ , Lizzie. Lines that never get crossed under _any_ circumstance.”

“And you think Malfoy doesn’t have such a line.”

Theo glared at her.

“I don’t remember us talking about anything but a bloody stupid jigsaw puzzle.”

Elizabeth pulled a chair back from the table and sat down.

“I’m not stupid, Theo. And, besides, I know you too well.”

Theo leaned back and crossed his arms defensively against his chest.

“We don’t need him,” he said. “And I, for one, don’t want him. At best he’s a coward. At worst he’s a menace. At the very least he’s a liability, and we can ill afford a liability of any kind at the moment. Neville told me earlier that the Minister is already considering pulling the squad off Mefodiy. Apparently the British wizarding community doesn’t think an obscure Siberian Dark wizard is worth expending British blood and treasure on.”

“You can hardly be surprised at people’s reactions,” said Elizabeth. “After all, Harry was . . .”

Theo suddenly dropped his face into his hands.

“Please, Lizzie,” he said heavily. “Please don’t use his name and the past tense in the same sentence. Not until I get some sleep, at least.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and he felt her hand on his arm. “I forget sometimes how close you two were.”

“It was Harry, you know,” he said, wearily but with determination. “It was Harry who convinced me to defect from Voldemort, to leave the Death Eaters.” He suspected that Elizabeth already knew the story, but he felt the sudden need to tell it again – as though saying Harry’s name could somehow bring him back, like a candle in a window lures the lost hunter from the darkened forest with the promise of light and warmth and fellowship . . .

“Go on,” she said gently, squeezing his arm.

“Well, as you know my father was a Death Eater. Had been from the beginning, even before that arrogant fucker Lucius Malfoy became second in command. And I’d been brought up to admire Voldemort and everything he stood for and to think of my father’s service to him was something noble and grand. To say I was stupid and naive is putting it mildly. But when my Mum died . . .”

Theo felt his throat constrict suddenly. How long had it been since he’d thought of her? Since he’d remembered her quiet, focused expression as she stood in their kitchen, chopping vegetables by hand like her Muggle mother? Harry’s death must be bringing it all back to the surface, all of the other losses in his life. Elizabeth sensed his distress and gave his arm another gentle squeeze.

“Anyway,” he said, his voice hoarse. “After Mum died, the thought of becoming a Death Eater was the only thing that gave my life meaning, a sense of purpose. Her death was what propelled me into the ranks of the Junior League, where I quickly excelled.” He smiled grimly before continuing. “I made quite a name for myself, and when I became the youngest wizard ever to receive the Mark, I was ecstatic, on top of the world. And who _knows_ what I would have done if I’d continued in Voldemort’s service. I think I was capable of doing just about anything. But thankfully I was captured and imprisoned by the Order, and it was then that Harry told me. My Mum hadn’t died in an accident as my Dad said she had. No, turns out my mother died of prolonged exposure to _Cruciatus_. At my father’s hands, nonetheless. And at the command of none other than Lucius Malfoy. It would appear that Malfoy the Elder had given my father a choice – torture your halfblood wife to death or lose your high-ranking position in Voldemort’s army. And then do you know what he did? Harry, I mean? He let me go. The mad crazy son of a bitch let me – a known Death Eater and murderer – go. With one parting word. _Remember_.”

Suddenly Harry’s face was all that Theo could see. He was standing in the brightly lit rectangle of a doorway, a tall black cut-out against an interior of map and chart-strewn tables and worn chairs and half-eaten plates of food and low-burning candles. 

_“Why are you doing this?”_ Theo found himself asking despite the significant part of his brain that was screaming at him that he was a fool to question his impossibly good fortune.

_“Maybe because despite what you’ve done, I don’t believe you’re evil, Nott. Misguided, but not evil.”_

_“But even so, wouldn’t it be wiser to keep me locked up?”_

_“Perhaps,”_ said Harry. _“But then I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of watching you leave and then seeing you come back to us. Because you will come back to us, Nott.”_

Despite the confidence in his words, Harry hadn’t seemed arrogant. No, Theo knew arrogance. He’d shared a dormitory with Draco Malfoy for six years, after all, and trained along side him for another two and a half . . . No, Harry wasn’t arrogant. Rather, he was just – simply speaking – _right_.

_“If the roles were reversed, Potter, I can’t guarantee that I would do the same thing.”_

 _“Perhaps,”_ said Harry again. _“But then again I have the benefit of past mistakes and lessons-learned. There was . . . someone else . . .I might have been able to save once. But I didn’t even try. Consider yourself his proxy and leave it at that. Remember.”_

And without another word, he shut the door, leaving Nott alone in the dark to consider his next step.

Theo dropped his head into his folded arms and, for the first time in two days since Neville had told him that they’d lost all trace of Harry’s vital signs, he let himself weep. Great heaving sobs that wracked his whole body. He scarcely heard the scrape of the chair when Elizabeth pushed back from the table to stand and wrap her arms around him from behind, laying her head against his. As wretched and lost as he felt, he was grateful for the quiet comfort she offered, and suddenly he felt the presence of others – Luna stroking his hair and whispering in her murmuring voice, Krum’s hand on his shoulder before being replaced by Higglebee’s.

“Don’t worry, Nott,” said Fairbanks from somewhere behind him. “Somebody will pay. If nothing else, you can be _sure_ of that.”

 

Theo woke to a quiet but determined knock, and before he was even fully awake, his hand had found his wand under the pillow and was pointing it at his bedroom door.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Who else do you know who can enter this flat without setting off half a dozen Evisceration Wards? Your flat-mate, of course, you stupid git.”

Theo whispered a quick _Lumos_ and struggled to sit up.

“Neville? What the hell? Are you just now getting back from your walk? Come in! What the hell time is it? Fucking Russia and its fucking lack of sunlight!”

Neville opened the door and padded over to the desk by the window. Outside the street lamps still glowed orange, but Theo could hear the sounds of traffic and voices from the street below. Must be at least eight o’ clock. Neville sat down heavily in the swivelling office chair, causing it to whinge plaintively in protest.

“Careful. That thing’s a piece of shit,” said Theo when Neville attempted to lean back and it tilted alarmingly far.

“I came back just after you did,” said Neville. “By the way, you left the toaster on again. You’re going to kill us both one of these days with your late night food cravings.”

“Sorry,” Theo mumbled. “At least I didn’t leave the toast in it this time.”

“Well, I suppose that is an improvement.”

They shot each other sad lopsided smiles. After all, they’d been here before – trying to pretend like life goes on after a death in the squad. Not that Harry’s death was anything like the others . . . But still the routine was a comforting one, and Theo was loath to depart from it. After breaking down the night before at Elizabeth and Luna’s place, it had taken him _hours_ to find some kind of equilibrium. There would be time later to grieve properly, but now what he really needed was clarity. Ruthless clarity.

“Listen, Theo,” said Neville after several moments of silence during which they listened to the everyday sounds of the world outside. “We need to talk about changes in leadership, and then we need to talk about Malfoy. Shall we do it now, or do you want a chance to get dressed and brew a pot of coffee?”

Theo’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. He’d anticipated this conversation, but now that it was upon them, he was suddenly reluctant to hear what Neville had to say because it could only confirm the loss of Harry and what that meant . . .

“No, let’s have it now,” he said firmly.

“Very well,” said Neville, and he took a deep breath, resting his big hands on his thighs and spreading his fingers as though bracing himself. Theo felt his heart rate increase another notch.

“As you know I returned to England after we lost track of Harry and he failed to return. I felt it was my duty to tell the Minister despite not having a firm answer as to what actually happened. Anyhow. The Minister and I discussed leadership, and he expressed his opinion that I should take over Harry’s command position and you should assume mine. That is, of course, on the condition of your acceptance.”

Theo let the news sink in for a minute. He’d expected it, but it was still a momentous announcement – one that would no doubt change his life in countless ways, both large and small.

“There’s another thing you should know about your new position, should you accept it. Harry and I . . .” Neville paused and turned towards the window, and Theo watched his Adam’s apple bob successively as he fought to keep his voice from cracking. Finally, he turned his face back to Theo’s. “Harry and I made all our decisions jointly. Each of us had full veto power over the other, so that only a full agreement resulted in a plan or policy or strategy. I want it to be the same with you and me . . .”

Theo nodded. “Of course, Neville . . .”

But Neville raised his hand to cut him off.

“I fear our ability to work with one another will face an early – and substantial – hurdle,” he continued.

“Malfoy.”

Neville nodded.

“Fuck,” said Theo, punching his open palm in frustration. “Fucking bastard!”

He lifted his face to Neville, his eyes flashing.

“Give me one good reason why you’re inclined to let him join us? And I do emphasise the word ‘good’ in that sentence because I don’t think enabling him to play out his little charade of the vengeful lover counts as a ‘good’ reason.”

“Theo, listen to me. Mal . . . Draco isn’t as bad as you think he is.”

“With all due respect, Neville, you don’t know Malfoy like I do.”

“Well, it is true that I don’t know the Draco you knew at Hogwarts and in Voldemort’s service, but I know the man he’s become. The four of us – I mean Hermione and myself and Harry and Draco – have spent a fair amount of time together in the past few years. We’ve travelled together, shared meals at each others’ homes . . .”

“Oh, please, Neville! Spare me the details! You don’t mean to tell me that you don’t believe Malfoy’s capable of playing nice and socially-acceptable when it suits his purposes? I love you dearly, Neville, you know I do. But you were always too soft when it came to everything Harry Potter. I admired him as much as you do, but I was never blind to his faults, and he had many of them . . .”

Neville rose suddenly, causing the unreliable chair to rock and bob so hard it left a dent in the plaster behind it. His face was flushed red in anger.

“I don’t see any reason why this needs to get personal, Theo,” he said levelly, but Theo could hear the undertone of indignation and rage just beneath the measured surface. He and Neville had been flat-mates in seven cities and had never fought over anything more serious than the toaster and Neville’s taste in music. Theo did not want to hurt him, let alone slander their dead best friend, but this was one of those lines he’d told O’Malley about just the night before. Over his dead body would Draco Malfoy join the squad. If it came down to it, the decision would have to be between himself and Malfoy, and he _knew_ , if phrased like that, that he would win.

“Listen, Neville, all I’m asking is that you hear me out. After I tell you what I know about Malfoy, you can tell me if you still want him on the squad – and why – and then we’ll go from there. Agreed?”

Neville lowered himself slowly into the chair once again, but he remained perched on the edge as if poised for flight.

“Keep all references to Harry both respectful and to a minimum,” he said, and Theo nodded.

“I loved Harry. You know that.”

Neville nodded.

“And, who knows, maybe Harry thought he loved Malfoy. But then again, you never saw them actually _live_ together, now did you? Or even pretend to act like a normal couple, for that matter. Harry had certain . . . inclinations . . ., Neville, and Malfoy was a sick enough fuck to indulge them for him. If you want my opinion on the matter, it has always been my theory that it was the one way Malfoy had figured out how to get at Harry, how to control him. After all, that’s all Malfoy _lived_ for the whole time I knew him. It was always ‘Harry Potter this’ and ‘Harry Potter that.’ Malfoy was obsessed and not in a nice way, I can assure you. So, when he discovered he could control Harry through his dick . . .”

Neville went pale and started to rise again, but Theo stopped him.

“Please, Neville. Hear me out. I know things about Malfoy that other people don’t. He used to be far less discreet than he is now. Malfoy Manor is stocked to the brim with illegal Dark Artefacts and banned books. Malfoy is biding his time until he can amass the kind of support he needs to run for Minister of Magic. And avenging Harry Potter’s death in the name of love would be the ultimate political coup. He may as well simply appoint himself, and then after that? Well, imagine Voldemort without the countervailing force of the Ministry . . . or the squad.”

Neville pressed his lips together in a bloodless line.

“You expect me to believe these conspiracy theories, Theo? Honestly! Before Harry was . . . was killed, he was planning to leave the squad to be with Draco, I mean. How would _that_ have fit into Draco’s allegedly nefarious plans? I hardly think Harry would have watched complacently as his partner assumed Voldemort’s discarded mantle.”

But Theo was undeterred.

“You saw how shocked and shaken Malfoy was that night when Harry made his announcement. That was _not_ the response of a blissful lover. Slipping out like that, all pale-faced and guilty looking! That was the reaction of someone who’d just realised that it’s put-up or shut-up time. He wasn’t going to have the luxury of Harry being out of the country anymore. He was looking at the prospect of Harry moving in with him and discovering his nasty little secrets. No sir, Malfoy was not happy. He’d had things just the way he wanted them – Harry in his perverted sexual thrall but also out from under foot. The best of both worlds, but his cover was about to be blown . . .”

Theo paused, realising that he was breathing hard and that his voice had risen to an unnecessary volume considering the fact that his fellow conversant was seated not more then ten feet away. Neville stared back at him defiantly. Theo sighed.

“Look,” he said resignedly. “I saw them once, okay? In Reykjavík. It was Harry’s birthday, and he’d been saying all day how Malfoy had a surprise for him and wouldn’t tell him what it was. And knowing what Malfoy’s capable of . . . well, it made me nervous, so I went to his flat to see if I could . . . I don’t know . . . catch Malfoy at something. I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was worried for Harry. After all, I’d only just recently figured out that he was ‘seeing’ Malfoy, or whatever it was he thought he was doing with Malfoy, and I was still in a state of shock about it. Anyhow, Harry must have been expecting Malfoy to show up sometime during the day because he’d left his wards down, and I was able to get into his flat undetected. I took Harry’s Invisibility Cloak and sat down in the corner, thinking if Harry caught me, I’d just explain my concern . . .”

“If you think that Harry would have said, ‘oh, okay,’ then you’re a damn fool, Theo,” Neville interrupted. “Harry would have had your head on a platter if he’d known you were there.”

“Probably,” Theo conceded. “Look, I’m not trying to say that what I did was right. I just want to tell you what I saw . . .”

“And I’m not sure I want to know,” Neville replied. “Because I’m not sure that anything short of telling me that Draco tied Harry up and . . .”

“And what? Made him bleed? Made him scream? Made him _beg_? Would that change your mind, perhaps? How about if I told you that Harry vowed that Malfoy could have anything he wanted, could _do_ anything he wanted, including _Avada Kedavra_ Harry at the moment of orgasm . . .”

“Enough, Theo!”

“We are not talking slightly kinky here, Neville. We’re talking warped and dangerous and probably illegal. I swear to you: the Harry I watched that night (when I could bear to watch) was definitely _not_ the Harry you and I thought we knew. He was nothing more than Malfoy’s puppet. Malfoy’s broken plaything! And I’ll tell you something else, the bastard got _off_ on it, on having the world’s most powerful wizard sobbing and licking his boots like a _dog_!”

“Enough!” Neville thundered, rising from his chair. But Theo could tell that he was shaken, that this new image of Harry did not sit at all comfortably with the image he’d held since he was an awe-struck little boy in need of a hero.

“Lucius may be dead and buried, but his legacy of pure unadulterated sadism lives on in his son. Malfoy used to come back to school after breaks with welts on the back of his thighs and within an hour have some first-year snivelling and crying and begging to do his bidding. He may have been nothing more than a schoolyard bully as a child, but as a man, Malfoy is one step away from lining up Muggle-borns and casting _Crucios_ at them for nothing more than a spit-handed wank. He’s twisted and sick and more powerful than perhaps even he realises, and I will be _damned_ before we hand him the means to rise to power. The squad exists to eliminate Dark wizards not fucking incubate them!”

Neville sank back into the chair once again as though all the strength had leeched from his body. He raised a trembling hand and covered his eyes.

“Do you want to know what Malfoy himself said to me a week ago,” said Nott gently, knowing he was probably delivering the _coup de grâce_. “Right before the dinner at which Harry made his ‘touching’ announcement about leaving the squad to go live happily ever after with Lord Lick-my-boots-Malfoy? He said it was too bad I hadn’t killed him when I had a chance because, and I quote ‘Kill me now, and you’ll have one of your best friends to answer to, and I can guarantee it won’t be a conversation you’d enjoy. Just ask Voldemort.’ Does that sound to you like a man who isn’t riding Harry’s legacy to power?”

They sat in silence for a long time.

Theo realised he’d been sitting ramrod-straight, and his back was starting to ache. He leaned against the headboard of his bed and drew his knees up under his duvet. All of a sudden, he felt like he was back at Hogwarts, sitting around the dormitory on a Saturday morning in his pyjamas, nibbling purloined pastries, and listening to Crabbe and Goyle’s endless bickering or Zabini going on about his latest sexual exploits or Malfoy plotting against Potter. He dropped his head into his hands. What had happened to all those boys with their petty grievances and adolescent obsessions and blind insouciant loyalties? Even the ones who still lived seemed long since dead and buried . . .

“Right,” said Neville at last. “I’m going to go put the kettle on. Just so you know, Malfoy will be here at ten o’ clock.”

Theo noted the reversion back to “Malfoy” and smiled to himself. He had won, and he hadn’t even had to trot out the petulant-sounding “It’s me or him” ultimatum. He nodded, and Neville stood slowly. He was almost at the door when he turned.

“We’re going back to Irkutsk first thing tomorrow morning,” he said.

“Good,” Theo replied, and when Neville gave him a conciliatory half-smile, he said it again.

“Good. I’ll be looking forward to it. With relish.”

 

They were just sitting down to breakfast when the knock came.

Theo and Neville froze and stared at each other for a moment, Neville half-in and half-out of his chair and Theo with his mouth full of toast.

“Just let me do the talking, Theo,” Neville whispered pleadingly. “You’ll just make this much worse than it needs to be.”

Theo nodded, and Neville walked slowly and deliberately to the door. Just before reaching for the doorknob, he paused and wiped his palms on his thighs. The gesture did not escape Theo’s notice.

Theo rose from his chair as Malfoy strode into the room, pulling off his leather gloves and his long cloak as he went. Harry’s cloak. Theo recognized the Celtic knot-work embroidered in black thread against the grey wool. He must be staying in Harry’s flat. The thought made Theo clench his hands into fists and dig his nails into his palms. He could hardly keep himself from leaping over the table and seizing the cloak out of Malfoy’s hands.

With the cloak removed, Theo could see that Malfoy was dressed head to toe in black. Black boots, black breeches, black shirt, black robes, black gloves. Against all the darkness, the pallor of his skin created a contrast so stark that it seemed almost indecorous. His spectral hair was swept back from his face and tied at the nape of his neck with a black satin ribbon. He looked like the textbook illustration of a Dark Lord, and Theo fought to swallow the bubble of semi-hysterical laughter that rose in his chest at the thought.

“Longbottom. Nott,” he said, and Theo was so taken aback at the sound of his voice that he almost forgot to nod in response. Gone was the imperious tone, the clipped posh articulation, the bored disdainful drawl that Malfoy had cultivated to perfection. In its place was a husky growl of a voice, a menacing grief-stricken sound, as roiling and dark as ocean waves beneath an oil slick. Theo watched Neville blanch at it and braced himself to step in if Neville’s resolve should falter for even a second.

“Draco,” said Neville. “Can we offer you some breakfast? Some tea perhaps?”

“No, thank you. And if you don’t mind terribly, I would prefer to stand.”

Neville frowned and nodded, but Theo reached surreptitiously for his wand.

“I’ll try not to offer you a reason to hex me, Nott.”

Theo blushed. Setting all pretences aside, he removed his wand from his robes and placed it on the table where everyone could see it – and where it would be easier to reach if the necessity arose. Neville shook his head sadly, but Malfoy – that fucker – laughed mirthlessly.

“I can see where this discussion is headed,” he said, strolling over to the window and resting first his hand and then his forehead against the casement. He seemed to consider the street below for a long moment, and Neville shifted uncomfortably in his chair before deciding to rise and lean against the kitchen counter. Theo remained – defiantly – seated. If Malfoy didn’t want to abide by the rules of decorum then fuck him. That didn’t mean Theo had to let him set the tone.

“I’m sorry, Malfoy, but the squad doesn’t need your assistance.”

Theo was surprised by the sudden sternness and clarity in Neville’s voice, and then chastised himself for having doubted his friend and colleague. Neville was truly a kind and gentle soul. But when the chips were down, he was always remarkably resolute and even ruthless. It probably said more about the War than anything else Theo could think of that someone as innately compassionate and pacific as Neville had been rendered so capable of brutal efficiency.

Malfoy didn’t turn from the window, but Theo could see his reflection in the glass, and he watched as Malfoy closed his eyes wearily as though he’d expected this response but regretted it nonetheless.

“So, it’s ‘Malfoy’ again, is it?”

Neville shrugged.

“You’ve never referred to me as anything but ‘Longbottom’ or Hermione as anything but ‘Granger,’” he said placidly.

Malfoy sighed and straightened.

“I suppose you’re right.”

Neville pushed away from the counter and reached out to touch Malfoy’s shoulder, but just before he made contact, he stopped – as though encountering an invisible barrier – and let his hand fall back to his side. Theo wondered if it was nothing more than habitual reticence, or if Neville had been remembering their conversation from this morning. Either way, it didn’t really matter. The effect was the same. He saw Malfoy watch Neville’s aborted gesture in the window’s glass and noted the way his back stiffened with offence and enmity when Neville dropped his hand. Theo reached for his wand and tapped it ominously against his juice glass.

“Do I get an explanation?”

Malfoy turned from the window and sat down on the sill, his long legs in elegantly tailored jodhpurs and knee-high boots stretched out before him. Theo smiled to himself, thinking how it would be impossible for Neville _not_ to remember the image Theo had painted for him of Malfoy breaking Harry like a wand over his knee. He watched with increasing satisfaction as Neville glanced at Malfoy’s boots and scarcely stanched a grimace.

“I think any explanation I could give would be unsatisfactory to you,” said Neville. “Look, Malfoy, I know you want to help find Harry’s killer . . .”

Malfoy raised his hand and cut Neville off mid-sentence with what Theo could only guess was a Silencing Charm of some malignant variety because Neville choked and grew pink in the face. Theo leapt to his feet, his wand levelled at Malfoy’s chest.

Malfoy stared at Theo and dropped his hand. Neville gasped and rubbed at his throat, but Malfoy continued gazing, unperturbed, at Theo’s trembling hand.

“You had better have a steadier – and quicker – draw than that when you meet Mefodiy, Nott,” he said before turning to Neville. “I apologise,” he continued blandly. “I should have stated my conversational parameters at the outset. I can’t bear the sound of his name, you see.”

The admission was so blunt and so without emotion that it seemed to suck all the air from the room, leaving behind a complete vacuum of sentiment in its wake. Theo felt something like nausea wash over him. He’d heard declarations like that before – in battle, in intensive care wards where blood pooled too quickly on the floor because the drains were clogged with torn dressings and rent sheets, in darkened cells before their declarants were later found swinging from the pipes like strange elongated fruit on barren trees . . . 

. . . But then the rage hit him like a train, and Theo felt the strength that comes from a righteous purpose steel his arm and extinguish all trembling, all awe of death and grief.

“Do not,” he hissed, “tell us that we cannot speak Harry’s name. He was our friend. Our _brother_. That he never lived to see who you _really_ are, Malfoy, may be counted as the sole and solitary blessing. You have heard what Neville has to say. Now, get out.”

“Theo!” Neville’s voice was full of anguish and chagrin, but Theo could not tear his eyes from Malfoy’s because with his words had flown something from their icy depths that might have been hope. And what he saw take its place chilled him to the marrow of his bones.

Malfoy stood slowly, his hands turned upward in a mock gesture of surrender and acquiescence.

“I shall take up no more of your time,” he said. The disdainful drawl was back, but the rough growl, like the delicate skin of a peach dragged across sandpaper, remained. The combination was disconcerting to say the least, and Theo felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

He walked slowly and deliberately to the chair where he had left his cloak and gloves, the iron-nailed soles of his boots clicking on the wood floor. Theo and Neville watched as he pulled on first one leather glove and then the other.

“Malfoy . . . Draco . . .” The plea in Neville’s voice was obvious, but Theo could tell by the emotionless mask on Malfoy’s face that he had no intention of acknowledging it. “Please, don’t go back to England on this note. Come by Luna’s place later. She’s been asking after you . . .”

As he draped Harry’s cloak over his shoulders, nothing showed in Malfoy’s face but the cruel and arrogant beauty for which his depraved family was, perhaps, most famous. He had never looked so much like his father, Theo thought, and immediately tightened his fingers around his wand. There were no other Malfoys that Theo knew of, and he doubted – sexually voracious though he may be – that Malfoy’s unnatural lust would ever result in offspring. He could kill him now and be done, not only with this one man, but with everything the name that he bore stood for. The generations of heartless overlords and petty hem-kissers – and closet sadists – gone, extinguished in a single _Avada Kedavra_. Theo could taste the hot iron in his mouth – the taste of gore and impending death. The only thing he’d regret is not feeling that pale skin beneath his fingers as they sank into the flesh of that exsanguinous throat. Gulping down bloody saliva, Theo raised his wand again just as Malfoy lifted his face. For one long moment, their eyes caught and locked, and Theo stood, rooted in horror, as Malfoy’s gaze slid into his mind like a scalpel, probing with merciless precision at the tumours of desire that exploded on contact like overripe boils. With a loathing greater than he’d ever imagined possible, Theo felt the blood rush to his groin.

Malfoy smiled a callous smile – the smile of a man who recognised pain and fear when he saw them. And liked it.

“It takes one to know one, Nott,” he said.

And with a resounding _crack_ he was gone.

[](http://frayach.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/363/66324)


	6. Chapter 6

I’m on my knees in the bathroom of Harry’s St. Petersburg flat, clutching the toilet and vomiting blood, when I remember him: the sickly blond boy at the Yusupov Palace.

Apparating had been stupid. I knew it even at the time, but I’d had to get out of there. One more word from Nott, one more wince from Longbottom, and I would have done something regrettable. And if either one of them had said Harry’s name again . . . Merlin, help us all . . .

My mouth fills with bile and blood, and another bout of retching seizes me. Under ordinary circumstances, I would be alarmed. I’m certain that I’ve Splinched myself somehow. But these are not ordinary circumstances, and I really wouldn’t mind if I just died right here with my head resting on the rim of the toilet bowl in this empty flat. But I’ve already sussed that it’s not a major artery or organ. I’d have fainted almost immediately if it was and expired before regaining consciousness. Hopefully it’s something I don’t need, like my appendix. Or my heart. I laugh at myself and trigger another round of vomiting. The room smells like sweat and hot copper and sick, and I wish for the thousandth time since I awoke not four hours ago, that I was dead. 

I’d trained in long-distance Apparation with Garrott McFadden, Britain’s undisputed master of the art, and before he’d even permitted me to attempt Apparating a distance greater than a hundred miles, he’d taught me every Splinching remedy known to the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad and then some. Twice, while I’d been training with him, I’d Splinched myself internally, and the experience had been similar to this morning’s – stomach pain, vomiting, nose bleeds. All I had to do was cast a temporary coagulation spell and brew a relatively simple potion, the ingredients for which I knew Harry kept on hand for just this very eventuality. But it’s been nine years since I trained with McFadden, and I’ve never Splinched since. The words for the coagulation spell and the brewing particulars are just the haziest of memories. And moreover, I’m exhausted. And sick. And . . .

I retch again, bringing up clots in addition to the anticipated hot gush of blood, my mind reeling as though half of it is still somewhere between Longbottom’s flat and Harry’s. This isn’t good. If I lose consciousness, I could choke to death. Or bleed to death. And then who would find Harry’s body? Who would see that he’s buried properly - with me beside him, our hands, with their twin silver bands, clasped and bound in burial twine?

I heave myself back from the toilet and fall hard against the cabinets beneath the sink, fumbling in my robes for my wand. My hands are weak, and I can barely find the strength to grasp it and draw it forth. Another spasm wracks my body, but I close my lips firmly against the mouthful of blood and swallow it back down. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember. Inverness in September. The hills dark with heather and the shadows of low scudding clouds. McFadden with his robes flapping and his long ginger hair blowing in the wind like some long-lost Scottish Weasley ancestor, his stern mouth forming silent words . . .

“ _Congelo Sangue_ ,” I whisper.

McFadden grins, reaching out a hand to help me up and brushing the dirt and bits of grass from the back of my cloak.

_“Yer handy with the healing spells, and ‘tis a good thing. But Splinch yerself one more time, Malfoy, and I’ll be starting yeh back at page one, and there’ll be no trip to Copenhagen for yeh this weekend. Now about that potion I showed yeh how to brew last week . . .”_

I open my eyes, blinking in the glare of the bathroom light, while the Highland hills gradually give way to blood and vomit-spattered tiles. I let myself tilt to the side until I’m slipping slowly to the floor. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt if I just close my eyes for a moment. I’m so tired. Just so . . . tired.

 

“Are you sick?”

The voice belongs to a child, and that alone should tip me off to the fact that he isn’t real. But real or not, I’ve been asked a question, and it would be rude not to respond.

“No,” I whisper and feel a thickening stream of blood trickle slowly from the corner of my mouth and trace itself beneath my ear and into my hair. “I’m just tired.”

“I get sick sometimes. Mama says I’ll be better soon, though.”

“I’m not sick,” I say, my protest sounding weak and ineffectual even to my own ears.

“You look sick to me. Do you want me to get you a glass of milk to drink? Mama says milk is good for sick people.”

Milk.

I brace my hands against the tile floor and push up with all my waning strength. Like all ingestible healing potions, the base for the Internal Splinch Repair potion is milk. I grasp the counter top and haul myself up, until at last I’m standing, breathing heavily, hunched over the sink. I spit blood into the drain, but the retching has ceased. The temporary coagulation spell must have worked.

I stagger through the door, towards the kitchen, the list of ingredients suddenly clear in my mind: crushed _Moringa Oleifera_ seeds, a pinch of gypsum, a spoonful of _Cassia Angustifolia_ gum, _Nirmali_ seeds . . .

I drag the bottle of milk from the refrigerator and grab one of the cereal bowls from the sink, momentarily cursing Harry’s stubbornness in refusing to buy sufficient dishware. The potion ingredients, thank Merlin, are in the first drawer I look in. They’re already chopped and crushed and cut and measured and neatly sealed in air-tight vials. My throat tightens around a sob as I set them out on the counter top with violently trembling hands. Harry must have done this. I recognise his nearly illegible handwriting on the labels. I open the container of crushed _Moringa_ and even through my blunted senses, I can smell its pungent scent of bark and citrus and tree oil. It’s obviously fresh. Not more than a couple of weeks old. A soft keening cry escapes before I can stifle it as I picture Harry. Harry – who always hated Potions at Hogwarts and whinged and moaned every time he had to brew one for some reason – shelling the white seeds from their pods and crushing them with a pestle and mortar into the finest of powders. Harry, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, grinding a crystal of gypsum. Harry, pushing his fringe out of his eyes with the back of his hand, his fingertips stained purple with juice as he painstakingly extracts the tiny black _Nirmali_ seeds from their glabrous berries . . .

Tears stream down my face and drip into the bowl of milk as I stir in each lovingly prepared ingredient. He must have done this every time I came to see him, not wanting anything to go off and lose its potency. Every time. For ten years. He must have known every directive by heart. Every detail. While here I am, combing my memory and imagining McFadden’s gruff voice, trying to recall whether I add the _Augustifolia_ gum before or after the _Moringa_. Every time. My Harry. My love.

I raise the bowl to my lips and gulp down the potion, spilling half of it down my chest, and pray that getting my tears in it didn’t fuck it up somehow. The bowl slips from my fingers and shatters on the floor as the room spins. I grasp the counter top and lean over the sink, sure that I’m about to be sick again and thinking that this is it. If I bring up the potion, I won’t have the strength - or the ingredients - to make another. But I don’t vomit, and despite the way the world is whirling around me, I don’t feel queasy anymore. I let go of the counter and slip to the floor, but before I do, I glimpse the open drawer where I’d found the potion ingredients and notice, just before my eyes go dim, that there are at least four more little plastic Muggle sandwich bags with four little vials in each. Harry hadn’t prepared enough for just one potion. He’d prepared enough for five. Just in case.

And just because he loved me.

 

I come to just as the last hour of daylight is retreating from the flat. From where I’ve fallen, I can watch the slant of ruddy light slip slowly and inexorably down the wall. For a long time it seems to linger in the seam between wall and floor, illuminating the place where white paint meets dark-stained wood. But at last it leaves the wall entirely and inches along the floor as though it is reluctant to go, to leave me here all alone in the dark. I watch as I reach out with one of my hands to touch it. To beg it to stay. But it’s at least six feet away from me. And besides, even if I were close enough, it would inevitably slip through my fingers anyway. Such is the nature of intangible things.

It’s dark before I find the strength to sit up. The hazy orange light of the street lamps has replaced the slant of sun, but I can tell from the noises drifting up from the street and the sound of voices and slamming doors from the hallway that it can’t be later than five o’ clock. The harried looking woman who lives two doors down comes home. I hear the frenzied barking of her miniature terriers and her mollifying voice speaking all-too familiar Russian endearments. Across the hall, someone knocks on a door and is greeted warmly and laughingly by the voices of two or more little girls, while outside a tram rattles past and street vendors shout out their wares.

I force myself to eat some stale bread and cheese and drink the last bottle of San Faustino, all the while trying not to remember Harry’s hands as they’d torn off pieces from this very loaf and held them to my mouth – only just over a week ago and not the lifetime that it feels. When my meagre meal shows no signs of returning, I wander back into the bathroom to take a shower. I stand unmoving under the spray for several minutes, trying to marshal my thoughts. Clearly, Apparating to Irkutsk is out of the question. As is flying. In the state I’m in, it could take me a week or longer.

I close my eyes. There was something that had occurred to me right before I’d passed out. What had it been? My mind slides back over the past few hours beginning with the stabbing searing rending pain that sliced through me the second I Disapparated at Longbottom’s flat. Even if I hadn’t felt the instantaneous pain, I would have known something was wrong just from the sound. It was less the usual _crack_ of Disapparation than a clap of thunder or the snap of a bullwhip. And as soon as I’d arrived in Harry’s flat, the pain had dropped me to my knees, and I’d crawled my way in here where I’d promptly started vomiting up my guts. Literally. There is still blood all over the floor and blood on the toilet and blood in the sink and blood . . .

The little boy at the Yusupov Palace.

That is what I was trying to recall. And in my delirium and pain I’d even heard his voice, although I don’t believe he’d actually spoken that night . . .

I turn off the tap and reach for a towel, my hand still trembling and weak. I must have lost more blood than I’d thought. Hopefully, Harry has an Invigoration Draught on hand. I dry myself half-hearted and step out of the shower, avoiding Harry’s underpants with my eyes as well as my feet. That clear spot on the steamy mirror is still there. I pause for a moment to consider my face. My cheeks look drawn and sallow, my lips even paler than usual. In short, I look like death and not at all like the charmingly elegant aristocratic English wizard who is about to show up at the Yusupov Palace and offer to escort a Lady and her children back to Siberia.

 

The concierge recognises me immediately.

“Welcome back, M’sieur,” he says as I hand him my coat. “Will you be dining alone this evening?”

I turn my head, pretending to check my trouser pockets for something, while I swallow back the sudden unwanted tears.

“Yes,” I say at last, my voice gravelly. I clear my throat, hoping he’ll think it’s nothing more than a bit of a cough. “Yes. I am . . . unaccompanied.”

He smiles at me blandly, and I remind myself that this is a restaurant and that this man sees dozens of people every day. He may remember my face upon seeing it again, but he needn’t necessarily recollect the tall dark-haired man in a borrowed coat who’d touched my elbow as we’d crossed the threshold and smiled fondly and secretively when I turned to murmur in his ear . . .

He leads me into the first dining room where, mercifully, we stop, and he gestures to a table for two by the window. I am certain that I wouldn’t have been able to sit in the other room and listen to the echo of Harry’s voice. _“This never would have happened if it weren’t for you. I was a casualty of the War. But you . . . But you saved me. From myself . . . just like you said. Just like you promised.”_ There is simply no way. I’m surviving on sheer will as it is, and one more reminder of what I’ve lost – one more adumbration of the emptiness that still lies ahead – and I’m done for.

I sit, and the concierge swiftly removes the superfluous setting across from me. I almost laugh at the implication inherent in the effort, as though the empty chair on the other side of the table is some kind of obscene gesture, and he doesn’t wish to offend me by drawing attention to my solitude. As though to be unaccompanied for an evening is akin to a leprous sore. As though bereavement is a contagion, and loneliness needs to be quarantined. I smile at him politely but without a trace of intimacy, and he returns the expression perfunctorily. He turns from me, his eyes already sweeping the entrance hall and the laughing throng of theatre-goers who have just arrived.

“Well, Harry, here I am,” I murmur as I scan the menu disinterestedly. “What shall it be? How about a plate of your beloved _pirozhki_? No, you say? Not in the mood for those tonight? Well, how about some _khachapuri_? Remember when we tried them the first time? Sitting out on the sidewalk at that café on Morskaya? You know the one I’m talking about – the one with the old blind dog that used to wander out and urinate on the customers’ legs. Remember? You told me he pissed on Nott’s leg once . . .” I chuckle and close my menu just as my waiter arrives.

He pours me a glass of water. 

“Angleeskee?”

“Da,” I say, and he smiles at me.

“Do you have any questions on tonight’s menu?”

His accent is heavy and foreign and exotic.

“No, I’ll just have the _kotlety po-Kievskiy_ ,” I say, stumbling slightly over the Russian pronunciation.

“Ah, the chicken Kiev. Very Angleeskee,” he says, and I can clearly detect the light flirtatious tease in his voice.

I return my menu to him. As well as his smile.

“Would the handsome _Engleesh_ gentleman like a bottle of wine, perhaps?”

“Please,” I say, my gaze holding his. “A red. You choose for me.”

He is pale-skinned and dark-haired and blue-eyed and breath-taking. And no doubt playing my obvious homosexuality and loneliness for a sizeable tip. He smiles and nods his head in a polite bow, his eyes never leaving mine. I watch him walk away.

“So, Harry, where was I? Oh, yes, the dog that pissed on Nott’s leg . . . By the way, did you notice our enticing young waiter? I believe he is _precisely_ the thing you had in mind for me, don’t you agree? I could take him back to your flat. Have my way with him. Fuck him into your mattress. I bet if I do him on his elbows and knees and press his face into the pillow that he’ll look just like you. He’s about your height and weight, after all. A bit younger, true, but he can’t be much younger than you were that night in Berlin. It’s a shame that you’re dead, Harry. Because otherwise I’d let you watch me have him. You always loved to watch them gagging on my cock till their eyes watered, didn’t you? Made you come in your trousers more than once, didn’t it? You fucking pervert.”

I smile at my own reflection in the window.

“As you always said, _takes one to know one, love_. Well, fuck you, Harry. If you ever really thought for one fucking _second_ that I could bear to have anyone but you touch me _ever again_ , then I suppose you never really knew me. You never really knew me at all.”

My waiter returns and makes a lovely drawn-out production of slicing the foil and uncorking my bottle of 2004 Le Sol syrah. I notice that his hands are strong fingered and rough – working class hands. The kind of hands that have always handled the aristocratic diaphaneity of my skin with reverence and awe, as though my body represented every luxury – every _bonne bouche_ – they’d been denied since birth.

He pours a dram of wine into my glass and watches me intently as I hold it up to the light and swirl it about.

“It’s uncommonly dark for a syrah,” I say before taking a sip. “And uncommonly intense.”

He smiles at me, his intentions no longer covert in the slightest.

“That is why I chose it for you, M’sieur.”

I set the glass back on the table and indicate with a tip of my chin my desire for him to fill it.

“Your dinner will be out momentarily,” he says. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I suppress the instinctual urge to reach out and slide a hand up the in-seam of his starched black trousers. As much as I may wish to touch – to lose myself in the orgasmic unravelling of another’s body – I _know_ that I do not want to be touched in turn, and I’m afraid . . . I am afraid of what I might do if he did touch me back. He is only a Muggle after all, and he wouldn’t know what to do when the _Cruciatus_ hit him.

I slam the shutters down behind my eyes, and the effect is not lost on him when I bring my gaze to meet his again.

“No thank you,” I say steadily. Definitively.

Concealing his surprise and disappointment with admirable aplomb, he nods brusquely and departs.

 

I leave the bottle of syrah empty, half of my meal uneaten, and a tip of three thousand roubles under the vase with its single red rose. He’ll remember me tomorrow, although not for the reason he may have anticipated – and perhaps even desired.

I am surprised to discover how easy it is to trace my steps of the other night. I can virtually hear Harry’s pursuing footfalls as I make my way down carpeted corridors lined with formal portraits and the stuffed heads of wildebeests. At last I find myself at the base of the narrow wooden staircase. Even from here, I can detect the mossy smell of old magic.

The room with the window in the ceiling is the same as it was the night Harry and I stood here and I’d sobbed with frustration and fear in his arms. Except tonight it is darker. I look up and see that in the days since I’d last seen it, the window has been completely obscured with snow. And the moon has waned into nothingness.

I draw my wand from my pocket and whisper a soft _Lumos_. The door at the far end of the room is closed just as it was before. I pause before it, my hand raised. It is true that I have not thoroughly considered every aspect of my plan. There is not the time for such a luxury, and moreover I lack the presence of mind to chart out every imaginable outcome and possible consequence. Time is slipping through my fingers. I _must_ get to Irkutsk and find Mefodiy before the squad does. Because they will kill him and ask questions later, and because, in addition to finding Harry’s body or at least finding out how he died, I’ve decided that it must be _me_ who takes Mefodiy’s life – one beseeching supplicating _pleading_ scream at a time. I won’t just kill the man. That would be too easy. No, I will first make him desire his death above all other things – be they real or only imagined – and in the end, I will make him beg for it. Beg for it like a dog.

I let my knuckles fall hard and sharp against the thick oak-planked door, and the sound of my knocking fills the empty space behind me, echoing off wood and glass and plaster.

“Please do come in, Lord Malfoy,” Alexandra calls from the other side. “We’ve been expecting you.”

 

Granger is waiting for me when I return to Harry’s flat. Or rather her head is waiting for me. I’ve scarcely shut the door behind me when I hear her urgent voice calling my name from the fireplace.

“Draco? Is that you? Thank _God_! Where have you been? I thought you would never get home!”

I take off my coat and cross the room, dropping to my haunches so that she can see my face.

“I’m sorry, Granger,” I say coolly. “Did we have an appointment that I somehow forgot to make note of?”

“Neville called me,” she says, as usual ignoring my disdainful civilities. “He’s frantic with worry. He said he went by Harry’s flat, but you weren’t there.”

“I apologise. I didn’t realise your husband had further business with me otherwise I might have made myself more readily available.”

“Cut the crap, Malfoy! Neville is distraught. I’ve never _seen_ him so upset! What have you done?”

“What have I done?” I reply. “Excuse me? Did I even hear you correctly? It was _your husband_ who told me to get lost. It was _Neville_ who treated me like a nobody, like someone with no right at all to ask for information . . .”

“Neville told me that you asked him to let you join the squad, Malfoy. That’s hardly ‘asking for information.’ I _told_ you they wouldn’t like it!”

“No you didn’t, Granger. You told me you thought it was a bad idea, and that I shouldn’t do it because I’d be . . . how did you put it? ‘Duplicating efforts,’ or some such rubbish. You never said Neville wouldn’t like it!”

“Argh!” Granger yells, and I swear I can hear her stamp her foot in frustration all the way from Tottenham. “You are being deliberately obtuse! I am trying to _help_ you, Malfoy!”

“By yelling at me? Thanks. I appreciate it. Now, if all you were after was to find out if I’m still alive, well, now you know, and you can bloody well bugger the fuck off now!”

“Where were you?” she asks, and I would swear I see her charred ember eyes narrow suspiciously.

“None of your business,” I snap.

She sighs.

“Blast. This is not at all how I wanted this conversation to go.”

“Again, I apologise,” I say. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

“Draco, look, I’m sorry all right? It’s just that I was really worried, and then you weren’t there, and your mother said you were still in St. Petersburg, and then I called, and you _still_ weren’t there, and I waited and waited . . .”

“Granger,” I say wearily. “What do you want?”

“I want to help you,” she says. “I want to help you find Harry.”

A long silence stretches between us. Somewhere in the background I hear the sound of an ambulance siren and the strains of Mozart’s Requiem. _Lacrimosa_. I am too tired to fight her any longer.

“I wanted to join the squad,” I say. “I thought Neville would understand. I need to get to Irkutsk . . . Wait. How did you know that that was what I was doing?”

“Your mother told me.”

“Figures.”

Another long silence.

“Look,” she says. “The Minister is probably going to pull the squad out of Siberia sometime before Christmas. He’s got people knocking down his door in outrage over the fact that some obscure Dark Wizard in the arse end of nowhere has murdered wizarding Britain’s greatest living war hero. In fact, he’s already demanded that half the squad return before December the first. Neville is going to have to send people back who have worked hard on this case, who have poured their hearts and souls into it. He can’t very well tell them to go home and then take on a former Death Eater . . .”

“I was _never_ a Death Eater,” I interject.

“This is really no time to split hairs, Malfoy. For all intents and purposes you _were_ a Death Eater, and few people have forgotten that. Or forgiven.”

“Oh, I see,” I say bitterly. “So now in addition to heading a thriving psychiatry practise, being the former wife of Saint Weasley and the current wife of Saint Longbottom and the mother of the two youngest International Wizarding Merit scholars in Hogwarts’ history, you’re also a mind-reader of the masses and the Minister of Magic’s bloody conscience to boot? Congratulations, Granger. You grow more fucking brilliant by the day. Please tell us mere mortals how _do_ you manage it?”

“Malfoy,” she says, her voice low and menacing. “Belt up and listen to me. Everybody knows that you and your mother bought yourselves out of suspicion. I don’t know what you actually did or did not do in the War, but I _do_ know you mortgaged or sold every foreign estate and liquidated every off-shore bank account your family possessed in order to buy off every necessary official. And those you couldn’t buy off went mysteriously missing. Now I am _not_ saying that I think you had them killed because I believe that Harry knows everything about what happened because you told him, and I know that Harry would never have stayed with you if he thought you had innocent blood on your hands. I know Harry _that_ well, and I know _you_ well enough to know you would never lie to him. Or even withhold information.”

She pauses, and I realise that we are both breathing hard. I struggle to get my emotions back under control before I trust myself to speak again.

“What are you getting at, Granger?” I rasp. “Just say it.”

“I am saying, Draco, that you were within a hair’s breadth of taking the Mark, and you are, at best, a master manipulator and, at worst, an unrepentant criminal. But you loved my best friend in this whole wide world. The person I loved and cherished and admired above all others. And even more importantly, he loved you back. You were the light of his life, Malfoy. The fucking light of his life.”

I don’t even realise that I’ve moved until my forehead touches the floor. I can’t breathe. There is something stuck in my chest. I try to exhale, to push it out, so that I can take a much-needed breath, but what comes out is not air. It is a sepulchral keening wail that I would never have imagined – not in a million years – a human being could possibly make.

I don’t know how long I stay there, my head rolling from side to side and my entire body clutched in the merciless vice of my grief, but at last I hear Granger’s voice.

“Draco.”

Her tone is cautious. And kind.

“Let me help you.”

“Why?” I sob, still unable to lift my head to look at her. “Why do you want to help me? You don’t even like me. And I don’t want your pity, Granger. Yours or Longbottom’s.”

She sighs.

“If you would set aside your pride and ruddy self-centeredness for five seconds, you would see that I’m doing this for Harry. I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, Draco, but I do know that if there’s even the slightest chance that I might see Harry again, I want to make sure that I’ve done everything in my power to help you. He would never forgive me if he knew that I stood by and watched you slowly bleed to death and did nothing. I cannot risk it. And if you are capable of understanding _anything_ about me, Draco, you can at least understand that I would never do anything in this world or the next to hurt Harry. The other day you spoke of lines we’d all cross in a heartbeat. Well, Harry’s the heartbeat – the reason – for every line I’ve ever crossed. The fact that he’s dead doesn’t change that.”

A sudden memory comes to me as I sit there, hunched over in a ball, my face in my hands and my hair trailing in the ash dusting the hearthstones. Harry and Granger and Weasley, huddled together in the corridor outside the Charms classroom. I am not close enough to hear their words, but I can tell from the gesticulating of their hands and the urgent expressions on their faces that they’re discussing something important. Harry looks frantic and furious. Galleon-sized spots of indignant colour sit high and bright on his cheeks. Granger reaches out with both hands and rests them on his shoulders. Holding his gaze firmly, she says something, and I watch as he responds to her words, to her steadfast gaze. His eyes lose their slightly wild look, and the febrile circles fade from his cheeks. He doesn’t say anything in response – at least not that I can hear – but his expression is one of complete and unwavering trust. I feel my sixteen year-old body flood with something I now recognise as envy but back then experienced as yet another surge of desperate and inarticulate rage. I walk past them, Vince and Greg in tow, and slam my shoulder into Granger’s back, causing her to stagger and fall into Harry, sending them both sprawling against the wall.

_“Get a room, you two,”_ I spit at them. _“No one wants to watch your little love fest.”_

Granger blushes furiously, and upon seeing me, Harry’s expression turns instantly from puzzlement to loathing.

_“Sod off, Malfoy.”_

As it always did when it came to Harry, my vision seems to shrink to a pinpoint, as though I am looking through the wrong end of a telescope, until all I can see is that furious pale face with its relucent eyes and unyielding scowl. Harry pushes back from the wall and reaches into his robes for his wand.

_“How romantic,”_ I sneer, my voice dripping with disdain. _“Potty’s going to defend his little Mudblood girlfriend’s honour.”_

Suddenly, far quicker than I’d anticipated, the tip of Harry’s wand is pressed beneath my chin, and I’m against the wall on the far side of the corridor with my head pinned back against the rough stone. My throat is stretched and vulnerable, and with a rush of shame, I feel myself swallow convulsively. I know he sees my Adam’s apple bob because I hear him laugh. It is a harsh and unfriendly sound.

_“Hexing you is beneath me, Malfoy, you pathetic coward, but if I hear you insult Hermione one more time, I won’t hesitate to use you as target practise for a more worthy adversary.”_

“Draco?”

Taking a deep breath, I raise my head and find Granger’s eyes, holding them fast.

“I am leaving for Irkutsk tomorrow,” I say slowly, emptying my voice of any trace of guile or disdain. “I’m not Apparating because I Splinched myself trying to do it this morning after meeting with Nott and Long . . . Neville.” I hold up my hand when I see her mouth open and her brow crease with concern. “I’m all right now. I’m just tired, and I don’t think I could Apparate half a mile in my condition. There’s a train. It’s basically the Hogwarts’ train version of the Trans-Siberian Express. It’s a wizarding train. It’ll get me to Irkutsk in three days. I’m travelling with a Russian witch and her children. They are titled pure-bloods from Irkutsk. I suspect that they, or others in their social circle, know Mefodiy. I will be staying with them in Irkutsk. I do not know the address.”

“My God, Draco!” she exclaims. “Are you completely mad? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

“Yes. Of course, I do. But I see no other alternative.”

Granger is silent for a long moment.

“There is something . . . ,” she says at last. “Something I’ve been thinking about. And when I mentioned it to Neville, I felt certain that I’d touched on something that he didn’t feel free to discuss with me. He’s easy to read like that.” She chuckles sadly but fondly. I wait for her to continue. I sense that she’s about to cross one of those lines we’d talked about, and I am reluctant to push her.

“You remember Ed Evans?”

I nod.

“You remember that he went missing in Irkutsk, and that Harry went on his own to try to find him?”

I nod again.

“Well, Neville told me that when Harry found Ed, he was completely drained – both physically and magically. It was as though he’d been sucked dry by some kind of metaphysical vampire or something. Neville told me that even now, months later, he hasn’t been able to use his magic. For all intents and purposes, he’s a Squib.”

All of a sudden I remember O’Malley’s whispered words as the group of us had walked from the Field of Mars to the Yusupov Palace for dinner that last night. She’d told me that Ed was at St. Mungo’s . . .

Granger continues. “It was immediately after Harry found Ed that they asked us for research help. They asked you to focus on Dark artefacts with transference properties. And they asked me to focus on the long-term effects of will-sapping spells – like _Imperious_ , for instance – not on the _mind_ of the controlled person, but on his _magical abilities_. When you told me the other day about Harry’s near-certainty that he would die soon, it got me thinking. What if Harry traded places with Ed?”

I merely shake my head. “I’m not sure I understand . . .”

“What if Harry found Ed in the hands of his captors and bargained his own life for Ed’s?”

“But that’s ridiculous,” I say. “Why would Harry bargain with them if he could simply kill or incapacitate them instead?”

“That’s exactly what I asked Neville.”

“So, you told him your . . . theory, then? About Harry supposedly trading places with Evans?”

“Yes,” she says. “And that’s when I got the usual, ‘I shouldn’t be discussing this with you, Hermione.’ I don’t think he realises that he says the exact same thing every time I strike too close to the mark for his comfort.” She smiles ruefully for a moment before her face grows serious once again. “Listen, Draco. I don’t think you should go ahead with your plan. There’s too much that even the squad doesn’t understand. . .”

“I’m sorry to put it so bluntly,” I say. “But the squad for all their strengths is essentially a military organisation with certain ways of thinking and going about things. They have all the subtlety of an armed battalion sometimes. Their strength has always been the take-down, not the intelligence gathering. They’re going to be even worse now that . . . . They’ll want vengeance.”

“And you don’t?” she asks dubiously.

“Only after I get the information I need.”

She’s silent, and I sense that she’s trying not to imagine what Malfoy-style vengeance might look like.

“I’ll go with you,” she says at last.

I don’t even have to consider her offer for a second before answering.

“No you won’t,” I say.

“Don’t try to protect me, Malfoy. It’s patronising as hell. Especially coming from you.”

“If it makes you feel better, Granger, I’m not trying to protect you. You spoke earlier of duplicating efforts. Well, you going to Irkutsk with me will do just that. Stay in England but do me a favour. O’Malley told me before Harry . . . before Harry died, that Evans was transferred to St. Mungo’s. Go there. Do whatever you have to do. But find out what he knows and then figure out how to get the information to me. The name of the family I will be staying with is Fyodorovna.”

I watch her face as she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a long moment.

“All right,” she says when she opens them again. “All right. I’ll do it.”

“And Hermione?”

Even through the embers I can see the surprise on her face at the sound of my voice saying her name – without rancor and without irony.

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell anyone. Not even Neville. . . _Especially_ not Neville.”

She nods. “All right.”

An awkward silence stretches between us for several minutes. At last I clear my throat.

“I may not see you again.”

“I know,” she says.

“I just . . . I just want you to know that _I_ know that I didn’t deserve him.”

She sighs.

“I don’t believe that,” she says. “I never really did. Listen, Draco. I knew Harry better than you might think. Yes, I loved and admired and respected him. But I was never blind to his . . . darker side. He was going to end up dead in some manky alley with his trousers around his ankles. Either that or he was going to top himself. He was bent on self-destruction, and there was _nothing_ I could do. I was utterly powerless to stop him, let alone help him. And then you came along. And though it is true that at first I thought you were making him worse by – as I thought at the time – ‘validating’ his urges, I stopped believing that a long time ago. Harry didn’t need my censure – or my pity. What he needed was someone like himself. Someone who wouldn’t judge him or demand of him things he wasn’t willing to give. Someone who wouldn’t flinch away from the darkness and hunger in him. He needed a partner, not just another friend. He needed a soul mate, a lover . . . and a worthy adversary who wasn’t afraid to hurt him if to be hurt is what he needed. Now, I’m not saying I approve. But neither do I disapprove. And moreover, I suspect that whatever you dished out to Harry, he gave back to you and then some. Neither of you are the same men you were before you got together. You are . . . were . . . _both_ of you better. You deserved each other, Draco. For good. And bad.”

I bow my head. It is the only reply I am capable of.

“I will tell you what I learn from Ed,” she says. When I don’t look up, she sighs. In the background, I hear the opening strains of the _Agnus Dei_.

“Good luck,” she says. “And if not, well, then, . . . good-bye.”

When I find the strength to lift my head again, she is long gone, and the fire has gone out, its embers cold and silent and dark.

 

I find Alexandra and her children in the tearoom at Mosovsky Station.

“I have spoken with my husband, and he is very pleased that you are accompanying us,” she says after I kiss her cheek and take a seat in the chair proffered to me by two vaporous _domovoi_. The small dark room is lit with low-burning lamps, and it takes my eyes a long time to adjust. I woke that morning to bright skies and sunlight glinting off the icicles jutting from the eaves of the neighbouring building, but here in this little tearoom, deep in the bowels of the crowded train station, it could be either day or night.

“I’m glad,” I say, loosening the collar of my robes and reaching for a cup and saucer. “And I am even more glad for your kind invitation. I look forward to seeing your lovely city.”

“It isn’t lovely at all!”

I turn in the direction of the small but petulant voice that seems to come from a heap of grey wool in one of the cushioned armchairs.

“It’s an ugly city, and I hate it!”

“Alyosha!” one of his sisters (Olga? Tatiana?) exclaims.

I smile at the pale face with its sour expression of which all aggrieved children are capable – be they Wizard or Muggle, pure-blood or half, Russian or British. He glowers back at me.

“Our Alyosha is disappointed, I am afraid,” says Alexandra. “He was hoping to spend Christmas with his cousins in St. Petersburg.”

The boy kicks the leg of the fragile looking table, causing our teacups to jump and rattle in their saucers.

“It’s not fair!” he says before slipping into a longer, more detailed complaint in Russian.

I take advantage of the distraction caused by his tantrum to notice how much he has changed since I first saw him. Though still pale and sickly, he no longer looks to be at death’s door. His eyes are no longer listless and glazed, and his skin is no longer bathed in a patina of sweat. Whatever was wrong with him (a fever, perhaps?) he seems on the road to recovery. I reflect, selfishly, on my good fortune in that regard. I had not relished the prospect of sharing a compartment on a train for three days with a child hemorrhaging from every orifice.

“It’s your fault we’re leaving,” he says in English through a mouthful of jam tart. “I’ve decided I don’t like you.” He scowls at me balefully.

His sisters descend on him like a flock of scolding blue-eyed starlings. But when I glance at Alexandra, I see that she’s watching him fondly, and there is nothing but joy – and relief – in her face.

“He has been so ill,” she says, almost to herself. “I had lost hope.”

Her eyes cloud over for a moment, but she shakes her head, loosening a wisp of chestnut hair from the pins holding it up off her neck. When she looks at me again, her eyes sparkle like a girl’s.

“I should never have doubted him,” she says. “I was weak . . . to have so little faith in one such as he.”

Something – some instinct, some intuition – awakens in my chest, and I feel the thrill of it stretching its veins through my heart. But I know better than to seem too interested.

“He does, indeed, look much better,” I remark pleasantly. “Shall I order us another pot of tea?”

Alexandra glances at her watch, and as she does, I notice that the people around us have started to stir, gathering parcels and bags and cloaks.

“I don’t think there is time,” she says. “The train will be arriving soon.”

I spend an embarrassing moment fumbling through the various currencies in my wallet, searching for the bright-coloured rectangular parchments that are the roubles of Russia’s wizarding community. Alexandra pretends not to notice, smiling vapidly when I hand the payment to our waiter.

We stand and start collecting our things. My own are quite manageable, considering I’ve brought nothing but a briefcase and a small trunk, which I’d shrunk and stowed in my coat pocket before I left the flat. But the Fyodorovna family have enough luggage for a traveling circus. Their ten trunks are Muggle-sized, but I can tell from their weight that they are not Muggle-made and have already been shrunken. As I carry them one by one out to the platform, I find myself wondering just how big they were to begin with.

“Thank you,” Alexandra says, offering me her handkerchief.

“I’m not going to ask how you managed to get those here,” I say, blotting the sweat from my brow.

“I have many nephews,” she replies and smiles knowingly at her daughters who blush scarlet at her words.

Priceless, I think, and almost find myself grinning at the thought of what Harry would say if he were here. Something along the lines of "obviously those young ladies can look forward to swimming in their own gene pool,” or something equally off-colour. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, bracing myself for the concussion of loss that accompanies every thought of Harry. But for the first time, the thought of him - his face, his voice - brings me more pleasure than pain. I hold the warmth of it against my heart for as long as it lasts because I know that it won’t – that it _can’t_.

 

The train ride to Moscow is only slightly longer than the trip from King’s Cross to Hogwarts, and we arrive at the Moskovsky Rail Terminal just after tea. I find myself longing for my sleeping berth on the Trans-Siberian Express. The effort of making pleasantries and small talk has exhausted me even more than I’d expected it would. I’d been especially taxed by the mercifully short but nonetheless painful conversation with Tatiana about the “handsome man with dark hair and glasses” who’d accompanied me the first time she saw me. I’d smiled politely and told her that “Mr. Potter” was “an acquaintance from my school days” who I’d met up with “unexpectedly” during my “sojourn in St. Petersburg.” She’d wanted to know if he had money and whether he was a pure-blood and if “he looked just as dashing in his robes as he did in his tuxedo.” I smiled affably, but my answer of “I wouldn’t know” effectively shut down the conversation. A fact for which I was glad. Very glad.

We take our tea in yet another dim cave-like tearoom in the train station. The only difference from this morning is that the tearoom at the station in St. Petersburg was full of witches and children, whereas this one is packed with wizards wearing Muggle suits. They cluster around the small but well-stocked bar, their briefcases leaning against their bar stools, drinking glasses of _medovukha_ and shots of Dovgan. Every now and then, a group of them bursts into raucous laughter, drowning out the voices of Alexandra and her children and forcing me to lean forward to hear their voices, so soft and quiet in comparison.

Somewhere around Novgorod, Alyosha had decided that he liked me, despite my having ruined his holiday, and had quickly assumed a conversational and physical familiarity that spoiled children of over-indulgent parents often do. I should know, after all, having been one myself. Under other circumstances, I might have been touched and amused by the way he’d triangulated me with his sisters and tried to braid my hair with his jam-sticky fingers.

“You have hair like a girl,” he tells me now as I pour him another cup of tea.

“So I’ve been told,” I reply. “But my hair is not all that different from yours. Do you have hair like a girl?”

He makes a face as though he’s just bitten into something rancid.

“No. I’m a boy,” he says as if that explained everything.

“So am I.”

He looks at me like I’m completely daft.

“No, you’re not. You’re Angleeskee.”

I give him a bemused smile and shake my head. I have no desire to explain to him the intersections (or lackthereof) of gender and nationality and the distinguishing characteristics of maleness regardless of one’s language or cultural heritage. Fortunately, his attention is diverted by another fusillade of laughter from the wizards at the bar.

“Papa wears a suit under his robes sometimes,” he tells me. “But our _starets_ never does. He says wizards shouldn’t dress like ordinary men.”

I sip my tea, glancing toward the bar.

“Your _starets_?”

“The wizard who makes me better.”

“How does he do that?”

Alyosha shrugs. “Don’t know. But he promised Mama and Papa he would make me better by Christmas. He already made my sisters better.”

“He sounds like a nice man and a powerful wizard,” I say. “What is his name?”

Alyosha shrugs again and reaches for a sandwich.

“I don’t know. My sisters and I just call him ‘Father.’”

“Does he live with you then?” I ask, dropping my voice nearly to a whisper.

He nods, his mouth full of bread.

“Sometimes,” he says. “Mama says he goes away sometimes to find things to help me get better. But he comes back. Olga says she always knows when he’ll come back because there is snow in the air.”

“He likes snow?” I ask.

But Alyosha has lost interest in our conversation.

“Let’s play another game of _Eralash_ ,” he says, reaching for his deck of magical cards in the little velvet pouch tied to his belt. “And this time, don’t cheat!”

 

We purchase a ticket for one first-class compartment, and I am relieved when the conductor tells us that he will see to our bags. I am also relieved when I see that we will not be crammed in on top of one another. Our compartment is an entire half of a car with a common sitting area and kitchenette, a surprisingly spacious bathroom, and four two-person berths.

Alyosha announces that he is sleeping in my berth, as if it were a question that was up for debate and there was even the slightest possibility I might room with his mother or one of his sisters. He insists on the upper bunk, and I am happy to give it to him until Alexandra draws me aside.

“Please do not let him sleep far from the ground,” she says, struggling to find the English words to convey her meaning. “I am afraid that he will fall.”

“Of course,” I say. “Although there are railings on the bunks. I doubt that he’d roll off during the night.”

“You do not understand,” she says, dropping her voice even lower. “He may hurt himself while climbing up the ladder.”

She must see something in my face because she sighs.

“Alyosha . . . _all_ my children . . . are not well,” she whispers. “If they are hurt, even just a little, they will bleed to death. And their magic . . . it is not strong. Not yet, at least.”

“I am sorry,” I say. “I will be sure to watch over him for you.”

She reaches out her hand and rests it on top of mine. Her touch is warm and dry and comforting, but it’s all I can do to stop myself from flinching away from the unexpected contact.

“You are a kind man,” she says. “I saw it in your eyes when first I met you. Your . . . friend, however, needs to learn his manners.”

I know her reference to Harry should feel like a lance to my heart, and I know I should be offended on his behalf at her remark, but instead I feel only warmth and fond amusement when I imagine Harry’s indignant response . . .

“Well, yes. Manners were never his strong suit,” I say.

She pats my hand before withdrawing her own.

“I really am glad that you could come so soon – and for the holidays, too. Our city is not big, but it is very beautiful. Especially in winter. And this is the first year that none of the children will be ill over Christmas. The house will be full of laughter and not sadness this year. Thanks to our _starets_.”

She touches her forehead in a gesture of reverence I usually associate with Muggles and their God.

“Yes, Alyosha mentioned your . . . _starets_. Is he a relative?”

“No, he is a _volkhv_. A brilliant and gifted wizard from a tiny village in the north. There are few like him left in the world. We are lucky that he came to us when he did. He is worth all that we have paid him and more. I beg him to accept more money, but he will not. He says that he loves the children and would heal them for nothing but food and a place to sleep. But I will not allow him to leave our home with empty pockets.”

“So, he is a healer then?”

Alexandra shakes her head.

“In Siberia, we do not draw lines between things like you do in the West. He has trained as a _znakhar_ , so yes, he is a healer, but that is not all that he does. He also performs exorcisms and purifications and slays vampires and dispels the Evil Eye. He is a . . . how do you say it? A ‘solider-scholar’ perhaps? He helps us fight the _porcha_ – the dark force that is killing Siberia’s wizards.”

I frown.

“I don’t understand. What ‘dark force’ is killing Siberia’s wizards?”

Before she answers, Alexandra glances around to insure none of the children can hear her. Something about her demeanour as she does this suggests that it arises out of long - and careworn - habit.

“It is a sickness that afflicts our children. All the greatest pure-blood families are affected – in Omsk and Vorkuta and Chita and Yakutsk. It is happening everywhere.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded, as it dawns on me exactly what she is talking about. This is not a “dark force” that she is describing, only a severely limited gene pool and an inherited congenital disorder! I know from my months of research that hundreds of Russia’s wizards were murdered or sent to Siberian work camps to die with their Muggle brethren during the waves of successive revolutions. Unlike wizards in Europe, Russia’s wizards have never full separated themselves from Muggles but instead play active roles in their culture and politics. Many of the Decemberists had been wizards, as had the revolutionaries of 1917. And they’d died in droves for it. Which, of course, had reduced their numbers. Add to that the distances involved in such a vast country and the insularity and pride of pure-blood families everywhere. Under such circumstances it’s no wonder marrying cousins became the norm . . . 

She must interpret my shock as fear because she reaches for my hand again and gives it a comforting squeeze.

“Do not worry,” she says. “Whatever _porcha_ is at work, it does not touch the Angleeskees. My husband tells me there are several Angleeskees who have been in Irkutsk since August, and they have not been affected. There was one accident, my husband tells me, but no one has fallen sick. It is a disease that strikes only children.”

I sense the outrage in her voice at a force that targets only the young and the vulnerable, but there was something that she’d said that I cannot let pass me by, no matter how suspicious my curiosity might sound.

“You said there was an accident,” I say. “Do you know what happened?”

“Oh, you needn’t worry,” she says. “You will be safe with us.”

I shake my head.

“No, it’s not that. I’m sure I will be safe. I just . . . wondered what happened, is all.”

“Our _starets_ told my husband about it,” she says. “One of the Angleeskee was injured when he tried to . . . how do you say it? . . . interrupt our _starets’_ healing ritual.”

Suddenly I feel faint, and Alexandra calls out to her daughters when I sink, weak and trembling, on to one of the benches. Anna brings me a glass of water and a wet compress. I notice the quiet calm in the girl’s face and suspect that sudden sickness and incapacity are not infrequent experiences in her young life. She regards me sadly, but kindly, with the same soft blue eyes she shares with all of her siblings.

“Lord Malfoy, you are not well,” says Alexandra, her voice full of concern. “Shall I call for someone?”

I hold up my hand and shake my head, swallowing back the nausea and sudden exhaustion.

“Please,” I gasp. “Please. Call me ‘Draco.’”

 

Alyosha’s dislike of me returns when he learns that I’m going to take the top bunk after all. He throws his books and toys on to the floor in a spectacular tantrum, causing a tidal wave of sisters to flood our tiny sleeping berth. I lie on my back with an arm thrown over my face, cursing my weakness, as they murmur soothingly to him in Russian. The gentle rocking of the train and their quiet voices feel like a deep sea on whose surface I am barely floating.

I must have dozed off because I awake with a start when Alyosha says my name. I lower my arm and turn my head to find his round face, like a little moon, level with mine and not more than six inches away.

“What are you doing?” I croak. “You’re not supposed to be climbing the ladder.”

He ignores me.

“Are you sick?”

I am struck with a powerful sense of _déjà vu_. And if I were prone to superstition - which I am not - I might feel alarmed, or perhaps strangely comforted by the circular nature of the universe.

“No, just tired,” I reply.

He nods solemnly.

“Mama reads to me when I’m sick,” he says. “Do you want me to read you a story?”

“Not really,” I say. “I think I would rather just go to sleep. You should, too, you know. It’s late.”

He ignores me and clambers back down the ladder. I hear him rummaging through one of his trunks.

“I will read you the story of the prince and the swan,” he announces.

I exhale a long resigned sigh.

“All right. Just stay down there, though.”

He takes an inordinately long time getting himself ready for bed, and the whole while he chatters seamlessly in a mixture of Russian and English. Fortunately, nothing seems to require a response from me, and I start to doze again.

“Shall I read it in Russian or English?”

“Russian,” I reply. His young voice speaking the unfamiliar words could be the sound of water on stones or the wheels of the train on its tracks for all the sense I can make of it. I find it soothing. A human voice but without recognisable words – those little barbs of meaning that snag on my heart like a hook in a fish’s gills.

“But you don’t understand Russian,” he says suspiciously.

“That’s all right,” I murmur. “I’ll learn. You teach me.”

My answer must placate him because he starts to read. I close my eyes and listen, emptying my mind completely. I can make out nothing of the story, of course, but his exaggerated inflections let me know when he’s reading dialogue as opposed to exposition. Every now and then, he stops and fumbles with an unfamiliar word, and when he does, I can picture him in my mind’s eye - his brow creased in concentration and a little finger tracing the word as though he’s capable of discerning its meaning through touch, like Braille.

“What does it mean?” he asks unexpectedly in English, and I yank my mind out of its comfortable stupor.

“What does what mean?”

He reads a passage in Russian.

“I have no idea. I don’t understand Russian, remember? Tell me what it says in English.”

He is quiet for a long moment as he works it out.

“The prince wants to shoot the swan with an arrow, but the swan says, ‘Shoot not, else ill-fortune will doom thee for evermore!’ What does that mean?”

I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling. It’s only about two and a half feet from the tip of my nose. It is too close for me to straighten properly when I sit up, and I have to bow my head as though some great hand is pressing down on me in forced supplication. I had difficulty undressing earlier, and I’d been reminded of those first few months at Hogwarts when I’d been too ashamed to be seen naked by my dorm mates and had hurriedly disrobed every night in the furtive gloom of my curtained bed.

“Well?”

Even in the cramped rocking darkness, the imperious little voice conveys the insouciant arrogance of a thousand years of aristocratic pure-blood breeding.

“It means: ‘Do not hurt me because if you do, your life will be full of grief and misery until you die,’” I say.

He is silent for a long time, and I’m just beginning to believe that he has fallen asleep when he finally speaks.

“Sometimes it’s okay,” he says softly.

I hold my breath.

“To hurt someone,” he continues. “If you do it for a good reason.”

I stare up through the darkness.

“Did your _starets_ tell you that?”

My heart is hammering painfully in my chest. It is so loud in my ears that I wonder if he can hear it too.

“Yes,” he says.

I roll over on to my side and curl around myself, around the seed of pain buried like a dragon’s tooth in my heart.

“It’s time to sleep now, Alyosha,” I say. “Good night.”

 

Siberia is flat, interminable, and as ethereal as a dream. It is not at all what I’d expected, and I am frequently jarred by the collision of its reality with my imagination. I’m not sure exactly what I thought I’d see: mountains, perhaps, and snow, of course. But after we crossed over the Urals – with their concrete cities and sprawling industrial complexes like grey scabs on poorly healed wounds – the mountains gave way to an endless plain. For two days, it glided past our window as we drank tea and played cards like a slowly unfolding story with no beginning and no end. Sometimes there was nothing but grass. In the pale midday light, it looked almost colourless as though the earth had given up hope for spring. But at both sunrise and sunset, the plain seemed to stir and come alive. In those fleeting moments of twilight, I saw hues I never knew existed – umbers and sorrels and coppers. The twilit plains with their shadows of scudding cloud looked like the brush cloth of a master painter after a day’s work, and I found myself caught between elation and despair: Elation that something so beautiful is possible in a world contaminated by death and suffering, and despair at knowing that so few people ever get to see it. And even among those who do, the percentage that recognises its message of indefatigable hope is probably small, very small indeed.

Both Alyosha and Anna insist that if we look long enough at the tall waving grass that we’ll see tigers. Or perhaps even elephants. Aloysha has the temerity to suggest that giraffes roam Siberia in vast herds, but apparently this goes too far even for Anna’s fertile imagination.

“Giraffes need trees, Aly,” she says seriously, and I imagine I see in her Slavic features a hint of Hermione’s scholarly gravity. “We haven’t seen a single tree since yesterday.”

Alyosha looks tempted to argue but wisely decides against it, choosing instead to perform a blatantly illegal move with his knight that effectively ends our short-lived chess game.

“I win!” he declares, grinning triumphally and displaying the new gap between his teeth. We’d spent the entire morning trying to get it to stop bleeding. Every towel we had was pink with blood, and even my sturdiest healing spell could do no more than slow the seemingly endless gush to a trickle. When it had finally stopped, Alyosha’s lips were grey, and his face seemed lifeless – except for his eyes, which were feral with fear. His mother gave him an Invigoration Draught, and I’d carried him to his bunk. But for several hours after the adrenaline had worn off, the other children were subdued, and Alexandra wept quietly into her handkerchief.

_“It is just so cruel,”_ she whispered, when I took the seat beside her and reached tentatively for her hand. _“To think that nothing more than losing a tooth should almost cause a child’s death.”_

 

I spend the third night staring out the window while the others sleep in their berths. Tomorrow we will be in Irkutsk. It seems clear to me, given all that I’ve gathered over the past couple of days, that the first thing I must do is learn more about this _starets_ and the “Angleeskee” who’d been injured. I feel certain that it must be Evans. After all, how many British wizards could there be in Irkutsk? And if it was Evans? . . . What was it that he’d interrupted, and why had the response been to attack and injure him? Clearly, whatever he’d witnessed was something someone didn’t want him to see. But what was it? And what – if anything – did it have to do with Mefodiy? . . . Or Harry?

Sometime during the night I must have fallen asleep because I lurch out of a shallow dream to find that the grasslands have given way to a forest of spruce and fir and larch. I watch my third sunrise through the dense growth of sloped shouldered trees, their boughs weighed down with snow. At first it is nothing but a pinprick of light amidst the endless trunks, a mere campfire and not a flaming celestial body blazing its way towards extinction. But then, slowly but surely, it becomes a bonfire, kindling the line of the horizon like a burning thread. I watch the new light stretch amaranthine fingers into the very heart of the forest and imagine how it would feel on my face. It astonishes me, this Siberian sun. Its presence in the sky is so brief, so fleeting, but nonetheless the whole world seems to hold its breath waiting for it. It’s like the celebrity guest at a long dull party who arrives just before everyone is about to go home and dazzles them into forgetting how bored they’d been. I smile sleepily at the analogy, surrendering in my exhaustion to yet another memory of Harry . . .

The Landmark Hotel. The annual fund-raising dinner for the amusingly acronymed London Universal Society of Transfigurists or, as Harry liked to call them, the London Universal Society of Tossers. I always receive an invitation because of my position with the Academy and because I’m richer than Midas, and I always go. Even though, of all the countless functions I feel compelled to attend, it is by far the most bromidic and dull.

Dessert and coffee appear, and the speeches are about to begin. I feel my mind descend into a stupor of boredom. I have long since exhausted all potential conversation topics with the other people at my table, and I am now praying silently for an unexpected – and preferably catastrophic – event just so I might escape the inevitable tedium.

Suddenly, I’m aware of a pervasive murmur of excitement in the room.

_“Can you believe it?"_ whispers the witch next to me. _"The organisers said he might show up, but I didn’t actually believe it. I thought I read in The Prophet that he was in Iceland or Finland or some place?”_

Every nerve in my body sparks to life as I realise that, yes, LUST’s celebrity guest speaker _did_ decide to show up this year. It is, indeed, unexpected given that he should, in fact, be in Iceland, and moreover he'd sworn he would rather snog Higglebee then actually turn up for one of LUST’s annual dinners. Several people at my table stand reflexively, and the excited murmur grows to a buzz when the doors open.

I twist in my chair along with everyone else as Harry Potter walks into the room.

He moves just as he always has: with singular purpose and an unselfconscious headlong grace, pausing now and again on his way to the podium to clap a shoulder or shake a proffered hand. He seems so utterly at ease that I find myself momentarily doubting the truth of his early confession to me, when he claimed to loathe public appearances above all things. The witch sitting beside me waves at him excitedly, and he stops briefly to chat with her. He is not more than three feet from me, and when he leans forward to catch her breathless words, I glimpse the place at the nape of his neck where dark hair gives way to pale skin. My body responds instantly to the sight, to his proximity. I feel my pulse quicken and my temperature rise and my senses awaken like water lilies in the sun. “ _Lovely to see you again,”_ he says to the witch and straightens, smiling warmly but impartially at the rest of us. Just as he turns to leave I catch it – the barest hint of a wink. A mere twitch of an eyelid, but I see it, and my cock twitches in reply.

He walks over to the podium and stands patiently, waiting for the voices and the flashing of the cameras to subside. I take the opportunity to drink in the sight of him – of his new haircut (shorter than I’ve ever seen it), of his shoulders beneath the expensive cloth of his robes. He is strikingly handsome, and I marvel once again that it is _me_ who can make him sob and beg, that it is _my_ name he cries out when he comes.

His speech is brief, but it’s long enough for his voice to conjure the memory of his growled commands as I offer him the canvas of my body for the brush strokes of his whip hand. I will let him do anything tonight. Anything that he wants. It’s been months since we’ve been to my dungeon, and there are things I’ve . . . imagined in the meantime. Things I want him to do to me. Things I want him to _make_ me do.

He concludes and steps back from the podium to converse with the other speakers. The surprise of his appearance has clearly disrupted the evening’s schedule. People are leaving their seats to try to talk to him before he can leave. There is no way the organisers will regain control. I smile furtively behind the rim of my teacup, and when I look back up at him, he catches my eye for a second and nods his head almost imperceptibly. Our sign to each other. I push back my chair and stand up from the table, while my fellow diners rise politely to wish me good-night. Without looking again at Harry, I turn and walk out of the room. Every step of the way I feel his eyes on my back, and I wonder if he knows what he’s done to me. It’s a damn good thing I decided to wear pants tonight and that my erection is trapped against my groin and not pushing out my robes for all the world to see.

Not long thereafter, he finds me in one of the ludicrously opulent stalls in the Landmark’s gents’, my robes open and my hand thrust down the front of my trousers.

_“This looks . . . familiar,”_ he says with a disdainful drawl. _“You do realise you couldn’t be any more obvious, Malfoy.”_

_“Yes, Potter, I know. Even a Squib can spot a Silencing Charm at twenty paces.”_ I reach deeper between my legs to cup my balls and roll them in the heat of my palm. _“Perhaps I_ want _to get caught.”_

He grins.

_“It appears you need rescuing from yourself,”_ he says. _“Again.”_

I smile at him, and suddenly he is closing the distance between us, and his mouth is against my cheek, and his hand is pressed over the top of mine, his fingers digging into my knuckles even through the wool and silk of my trousers. I tighten my grip on my erection and quicken my strokes. His hand follows suit, still covering mine. He is so close. I am full with my awareness of him - the heat of his body, the smell of his skin. He is watching himself touch me, his expression focused and concentrated as though getting me off were the most important thing in the world. When he lifts his gaze and finds my eyes, I almost come just from the look he gives me, but I stop us both just at the edge of my orgasm and stand still, my forehead resting against his, panting my arousal in the quiet air. He moves forward to kiss me and his hip brushes his hand which presses against mine in turn. With a violent shudder, I start coming helplessly.

_“Fuck, Draco!”_ he gasps, wrenching my hand away from my spurting cock and dropping to his knees in front of me. He takes me deep in his mouth, and the last of my orgasm throbs down the back of his throat.

I sink bonelessly to the floor.

_“Fuck,”_ he says, his voice filled with what could only be described as awe. _“That was unbelievably fucking hot, Draco.”_

_“Worth the price of admission?”_ I gasp.

_“And then some.”_

He kisses my sweaty forehead tenderly.

_“Why are you here?”_ I ask. _“I thought you hated these things.”_

_“I do. It’s just that I showed up at the Manor to surprise you only to have Narcissa tell me you were at the damn Tossers’ Society dinner – again. Why do you go to these stupid things anyway?”_

_“Must be the masochistic streak in me,”_ I reply.

_“Must be,”_ he agreed.

_“So, if you loathe it so much, then why are you here?”_

_“Got tired of drinking your Scotch by myself.”_

_“You wanker. You better not have opened a new bottle.”_

_“Opened it and finished it.”_

_“Did not.”_

_“Did, too.”_

_“Wanker.”_

_“Tosser.”_

_“Git.”_

_“Prat.”_

I laugh and kiss him.

_"Bloody hell, Harry, I’ve missed you!"_

_"And me, you."_

He catches my face between his hands, his gaze suddenly serious and intense.

_“You want the truth? The truth of why I’m really here?”_ he asks.

I nod. He strokes my cheek with the pad of his thumb, seeming to drink in every detail as he looks at me.

_“I couldn’t wait one second longer to see your face,”_ he says, his voice suddenly hoarse. _“Not one second, Draco. Having to make a speech and endure half an hour of having my arse kissed was worth it if I got to lay my eyes on you even five minutes before I would have otherwise.”_

The kiss he gives me is long and deep and possessive. I can taste my come in his mouth. He pulls back and licks his bottom lip. His eyes are heavy-lidded and dark. I push myself back up and stand, looking down at him for a long moment, at his flushed face and hungry gaze.

_“Come with me,”_ I say and hold out my hand . . . 

 

I squeeze my eyes shut as the sun finally slips free of the horizon. Through the tears beading on my lashes it seems to refract endlessly – bursts of light winking between the dark tree trunks as the train hurdles pass. I take a shaky breath and drag my sleeve across my face. The memory of Harry kissing and touching me, the whisper of his breath against my cheek . . . I am so hard. It wouldn’t take much. I could probably pretend to read and press the spine of the book against my erection and get off that way. Olga is awake, but she’s busy preparing breakfast in the little kitchenette. She’d never know . . . I close my eyes and picture Harry, the look on his face as he watched me stroke myself . . .

An instinct tells me that if I’m really going to do this then I need privacy, and I need it _now_. I stand and make my way to the lavatory, locking the door behind me. It has been days since I masturbated – not since Hermione and Neville appeared in my library bearing the news of the end of my world. And that may not seem like a long time to most people, but I have had at least one orgasm a day, every day, since hitting puberty. Coming is as necessary to me as any other daily bodily function - maybe even more so given the wreck I am mentally if I go without for too long. Tense, irritable, jumpy, my hunger worrying the edges of my concentration, tugging on loose threads and unravelling every thought like a poorly-knit jumper . . .

I unfasten my robes and slide a hand over the front of my trousers, feeling the edacious throbbing of my neglected prick. I squeeze it angrily as if it, alone and unaccompanied by my brain, is the sole reason for this unthinkable transgression. I don’t _want_ to be touching myself. I don’t _want_ to have an orgasm. Not with Harry’s body unfound and unburied . . . Fuck! Not without Harry _at all_. And if I thought it would make any difference – that it might actually end this ravening hunger that has haunted me seemingly since the day I was born – then I would hex my own cock off and be done with it . . . 

I am going to come. I can feel the start of my orgasm sink its roots into my belly, tugging my balls up tight and filling my groin with ecstatic warmth. And I am even more furious with myself because I know it’s going to be huge, mind-blowing, rending. And _wrong_. It’s going to feel like heaven when it seizes me only to plunge me into an even deeper hell when it recedes . . . 

I fumble with my belt buckle, suddenly frantic for the feel of skin against skin, even if it’s just my own. I shove my trousers down to the middle of my thighs and grasp my cock. It’s slippery wet but not wet enough – not as wet as Harry’s mouth, not as wet as his arse after I’ve spent twenty minutes rimming him, my mouth salivating helplessly . . .

“ _Accio_ razor,” I gasp.

The kiss of cold steel against the pulse point is nearly enough to push me over the edge, but I force back my orgasm with all my considerable discipline and slide the straight edge blade across my wrist. The pain is exquisite and more necessary than breath. I quickly do the other wrist and toss the razor into the copper sink basin, splattering the mirror with blood.

I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wall, fucking the slick heat of my hands and imagining they’re Harry. My pants of exertion echo in the enclosed space and mingle with the steady cadence of the train rocking on its rails until I swear that I’m not alone and that he is here with me . . .

_Draco!_ he moans, lost and wanton.

I circle my thumb and forefinger around the tip of my cock, squeezing convulsively as though I’m breaching Harry, unprepared and skittish as a colt, the muscles in his arse twitching in anticipation . . . 

_Draco!_

I’m going to fuck him _so hard_. He won’t remember his name by the time I’m done with him. He won’t remember that he’s Harry fucking Potter, the fucking Boy Who Lived but the Man Who Didn’t. He won’t remember that there was anywhere he was meant to be except beneath my thrusting hips – any _thing_ he was meant to be except the receptacle of my boundless lust . . .

Everything is too hot and too wet, and the world is performing a pirouette. But it doesn’t matter because I am fucking Harry, and he is sobbing out my name, over and over again. I can feel him. I can smell him. I can taste him . . . I bring one of my wrists to my mouth and suck on the open wound. I can _taste_ him. And as I start to come in huge, exaggeratedly spaced-out contractions, I think, _Of course_ you taste him, you idiot. He’s _Harry_. He’s on the tip of your tongue. He’s the dream from which you will never waken. He’s in your blood.

. . . _in your blood_ . . .

I slip to the floor and sit watching the twin pools widen beneath my palms as it dawns on me. If I don’t find Harry soon, this . . . _this_ . . . is how I will die. And I hate myself, knowing that on the other side of the wall is a child who would give anything to stop bleeding while I, it would seem, cannot bleed enough.


	7. Chapter 7

Theo glared up at the night sky when the first hint of cold wetness brushed his cheek. If he never saw another snowflake for the rest of his life, it still would be too soon.

Growing up in Blackpool, he used to be excited by the prospect of snow. Whole winters would pass with little more than a flurry, but every now and then a proper blizzard would arrive like a stranger in the night, and they’d awake to an unfamiliar world, white and pure and sparkling. Even the rusting tower down by the strand would look like something out of a fairy tale. Plus, the scant inch or two would nearly always disappear by teatime, further cementing the impression of transience and mystery. But then he’d gone to Hogwarts where the raging blizzards came screaming in over the lake like white-winged Banshees. Not to mention the dirty snow piles that melted with excruciating reluctance under the frail Highland sun.

But Siberia was definitely the icing on the fucking cake.

The snow in Irkutsk had started in September. Theo remembered it vividly because he hadn’t believed it. Especially since the morning had dawned mild and golden. So when Harry had stomped his way into the squad’s flat that evening, laughing and shaking his mop of dark hair, Theo had thought for a second that he’d been to some kind of party that involved lots of white confetti.

_“Oh dear sweet Merlin,”_ Elizabeth had groaned when she saw him. _“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is. Bloody snow in bloody September? It’s like Iceland all over again.”_

Katie glanced up from her piles of charts and graphs.

_“Guess this means it’s time to pack away my bikini for the season.”_

But Harry had just grinned at all their whinging, and Theo remembered being glad for it - despite its unfortunate origins. After all, Harry hadn’t been his usual self for days - ever since Ed had been injured, and Harry had shown up with Ed’s limp and lifeless body in his arms . . .

“A Sickle for your thoughts.”

Theo started and turned his head, peering through the slit between his scarf and hat brim to find that Luna had joined him.

“When did you get here?” he asked, unable to keep the snap of irritation out of his voice.

“Just now,” she said, smiling sweetly but knowingly. “Don’t worry, Theo. I haven’t been spying on you.”

“I didn’t think you were,” he grumbled, although he knew he’d been caught being paranoid and suspicious. Again.

She sighed and rubbed his arm through the layers of shirt and jumper and coat – which was an apt metaphor for their whole relationship, he realised suddenly.

“You should think about taking some time off after this,” she said, her breath smoking in the still evening air. “You’ve been out straight since Helsinki.”

“Harry never took any time off,” Theo replied too quickly.

Luna closed her eyes wearily for a long moment, and Theo thought, when she opened them again, that they looked even more glassy and sad than usual.

“Yes. Exactly,” she said. As if that explained everything.

They stood together in companionable silence for several minutes watching the passers-by, wrapped and muffled and swaddled against the frigid night.

“So are you going to tell me what you were thinking or not?” she asked at last.

“I was thinking how fucking sick of snow I am.”

“Then why are you out here standing around in it?”

Theo snorted ruefully.

“Touché. Came out for a smoke, actually. And sorry if you don’t like it, but you asked.”

“It takes you forty-five minutes to smoke a cigarette, or does 'a smoke' mean a whole pack these days?”

Theo remained obstinately silent for a long minute, squinting into the middle distance.

“I can’t think in there.”

“Too noisy?”

“Too fucking _quiet_ is more like it.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean.”

Theo felt the edges of his heart thaw and soften, and before it could scare him into a state of paralysis, he reached out and drew her into his arms.

“Thanks,” he said gruffly. “I thought you might.”

She was wearing that ridiculous fuzzy pink hat again, and it tickled his nose when he bent to kiss the top of her head.

“Did you come out looking for me?” he asked.

“Partly. I was also planning to go for a walk before it got too late.”

“Want some company?”

She stepped away from him and looked up at his face.

“You know I do,” she said. “The question is, do you?”

He gave her a sad smile, knowing too well why she felt the need to ask. But when her eyes remained shadowed with doubt, he realised he still had his scarf over his mouth, and clearly his smile hadn’t reached his eyes. Because if it had, she would have seen it and known. He sighed. Yet another reason to hate the cold and snow.

“I do,” he said, and her eyes cleared, as blue as Lake Baikal on a cloudless day. He felt the familiar tinge of gladness in his heart again and took her hand.

“So,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

 

They strolled down Chekhova Ulitsa, past sparsely stocked grocers, department stores displaying armless mannequins in dowdy house dresses, and cafés, their windows dripping with condensation. Theo retrieved his cigarettes from his pocket and drew one out with his teeth.

“Do you think the lack of a full set of limbs makes them cheaper?”

Theo paused to light his cigarette, cupping his hands around the flimsy Muggle match. He inhaled deeply, shaking out the tiny flame and flicking the spent match into the street.

“I have no doubt that question makes complete sense to you,” he said.

Luna giggled. “The mannequins, you git.”

Theo turned and craned his head in the direction of the last department store.

“I dunno. Maybe they cater to amputees. In which case, custom limbless mannequins probably cost _more_.”

A group of teenaged boys in black canvas jackets and jeans falling off their non-existent arses parted around them like a sullen sea. Theo watched them head up Chekhova until they ducked into the door of an arcade. For a moment, the snowy sidewalk was splattered with flashing multi-coloured lights, and the night air was filled with a thousand different kinds of electronic percussion. Then the door shut behind them, and all was once again quiet and dark.

Theo snorted.

“Who would have thought that Harry’s Hogwarts look would become the fashion craze of Muggle adolescents the world over.”

Luna smiled fondly, if somewhat sadly.

“I know. With those baggy clothes of his we were always getting glimpses of Harry. Dean started calling it ‘Potter’s crack’ instead of ‘Plumber’s crack.’”

Theo snorted again.

“Well, just be glad you didn’t have to watch Crabbe and Goyle struggle into their too-small trousers every morning. It’s amazing I ever had an appetite for breakfast.”

“Vincent had a nice smile,” said Luna thoughtfully, but Theo merely grunted.

“A nice smile in relation to the populace at large? Or a nice smile for a nasty little toady?”

“A nice smile in relation to the populace at large,” she said, and Theo thought he saw her press her hands deeper into her pockets and draw her shoulders up around her ears.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No,” she said and offered nothing more.

They walked in silence for several minutes. The Central Market was closing for the day, and most of the vendors had packed away their goods. A few still remained beside their empty stalls, laughing companionable and drinking vodka out of Styrofoam cups.

“I think you and Neville were wrong,” she said suddenly and rather vehemently.

Theo stopped and threw his cigarette on the ground, crushing it under his boot. Despite her habit for innavigable segues, he had a sneaking suspicion that he knew what she was on about.

“And what, pray tell, were we wrong about?” he asked.

“Draco,” she said. “You were wrong not to let him join the squad.”

Theo had known that was what she would say, but he felt the irritation surge in his chest all the same.

“We’re not the only ones who think so,” he said defensively. “Both Higglebee and Fairbanks thought it was a bad idea. Just because you and Elizabeth have the hots for him . . .”

“Oh Theo,” she said wearily, “that is just stupid. Sorry to be so blunt, but really. Everyone with eyes in their heads has figured out who I have the hots for, and it’s not Draco Malfoy.”

Theo blushed angrily and looked away. He knew damn well who she was talking about, but he’d avoided this conversation for months, and he could see no reason to stop avoiding it now.

They had reached the far end of Chekhova by this point and were standing at the intersection with Timiryazeva Ulitsa. Theo had been here several times over the months since they’d first come to Irkutsk, but generally he avoided this direction, preferring to walk along the river instead, past the sewage treatment plant and the endless rows of dilapidated warehouses. He hated Irkutsk. Hated it with a passion, and he preferred its uglier places because there it was easier to pretend that nobody lived here. That nobody called this hemorrhoid on the arse of nowhere home. But here, at the intersection of Chekhova and Timiryazeva, pretending was far more difficult. This was where the people of Irkutsk lived. Timiryazeva was the seam between the city’s commercial and residential districts. This was where he’d heard children laughing as they ran home from their first day of school. This was where women stood in doorways chatting to their friends on the street, and he’d glimpsed the dark interiors behind them with their busy wallpapers and the bright flicker of television sets. People lived here. Even before they’d lost Harry that fact had seemed like a personal affront to him. But now that Harry was gone . . . Theo worried sometimes that he could convince himself that all the people of Irkutsk, be they wizard or Muggle, were responsible. He worried that kicking down those doors and shattering those television sets might seem reasonable and perhaps even cathartic.

“Have you ever been past the mansions on Sovetskaya?”

Theo pulled out another cigarette and lit it.

“Don’t you think we should head back now?” he asked. “It’s almost time for dinner.”

Luna wrinkled her nose.

“Fairbanks is making chili . . . again. I thought perhaps we could stop at a café instead.”

Theo took a deep drag, holding in the smoke for a moment before releasing it in a rush.

“Fine,” he said. “Then maybe we should head back to town now. It’s nearly six after all, and you know how this place rolls up its streets at night.”

“Let's go just a little farther,” she said. “I love seeing all those people in those grand houses sitting down to dinner. I like to pretend it’s me in there, with a husband and babies and a normal life.” Her laugh was heavy with rueful self-deprecation.

“Whatever, Lovegood,” he said. “Like you’ve ever wanted anything ‘normal’ in your life.” He reached out and put his arm around her shoulder, tugging her gently so that she fell against him. He kissed the top of her fuzzy pink hat again. “And I mean that as a compliment.”

“Hhhmmmmm,” she said, and - as usual - he had no idea what she meant by it. But she did tilt back her head to kiss his cold cheek.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll keep going. You lead the way.”

 

They walked past wooden houses with ornately patterned trim. The older houses always gave Theo the creeps, no matter what time of day it was, but their combination of dark-stained rotting wood and candy-coloured decoration was even creepier at night. They huddled up against the street like vagrants around a fire – or lavishly painted old whores. This was where many of the exiled Decembrists had lived, and Theo imagined them sometimes, especially now that winter had come crashing down on the city like a tyrant’s fist on a table. In the early nineteenth century, Irkutsk had been little more than an outpost, with less than half of its commercial streets paved and trappers coming in from the surrounding forests for their vodka and a monthly bath, tracking mud into the parlours of brothels. How strange it must have been for those aristocratic intellectuals with their taste for the clavichord and the ballet and their entourage of capricious wives and malcontent children. How strange and disorienting after a life surrounded by the carnal and intellectual pleasures of St. Petersburg. Every time the squad had moved back and forth between the two worlds, Theo had felt he understood their plight all the more and experienced a sense of kinship with these long-dead men. He shuddered unwittingly as he and Luna passed by the windows, imagining thoughtful faces, bathed in candle light and the sepia-toned memories of lives changed overnight by war and revolution.

Before too long, the small wooden houses gave way to the stone mansions of the industrial giants who emerged between each successive wave of revolution like rats from a drain. Their wrought iron fences cast moonlit shadows, making their snowy lawns look like the marching grounds of lance-bearing armies. Like all houses in Irkutsk, most of the mansions’ windows were shuttered against the cold draughts, which no glass, no matter how thick, seemed able to repel. But unlike the homes of poorer people, their downstairs windows were uncovered, spilling rectangles of light on to the snow. Somehow the contrast they created with the night outside made the darkness seem all the more oppressive. There were no street lamps here, no neon signs. Only starlight and moonlight and the interior light of proud and fiercely private lives. The squeak of the snow under their boots suddenly seemed obscenely loud.

They had stopped, and Theo knew he would eventually have to ask Luna whether she wanted to continue on or go back. But he was reluctant to look at her, to acknowledge the unspoken thing between them, and furthermore he suddenly felt oddly and painfully awake. His eyes darted from the shadows of branches on the snowy lawns to the wells of darkness pooling beneath the parked cars like spilt motor oil. His hand twitched, moving reflexively for his wand. Just when he was about to pull it back and admonish himself for his paranoia, he saw it, like a flicker at the edge of a dream.

A soft silver spill of blond hair.

Malfoy.

 

The owl is beautiful. I can tell from his prominent ear tufts that he is native to the region and not one of the Eagle Owls bred in captivity back in Yorkshire. He’s been calling since the sun went down, but as soon as he sees me emerge from the door off the kitchen, he stops. And that’s how I know he’s looking for me.

I pull my cloak close against the frigid starlit air and cross the lawn to the enormous old larch. The owl watches my approach with luminous orange eyes.

“ _Preevyet_ ,” I say, standing just beneath him and feeling oddly like I’m being permitted an audience by the king of birds. “Are you looking for Draco Malfoy?”

The owl clacks his beak and holds out a leg. It takes me too long to pry apart the frozen knot in the leather thong, and I find myself muttering an apology. But he is patient, and finally I release him from his burden.

“Thank you,” I say, reaching into my pocket for the roll I’d grabbed off the kitchen table on my way out. He eyes it for a moment before plunging forward and seizing it from my hand. And then he is gone, soaring like a shadow over the neighbours’ rooftops. I unroll the parchment, my fingers already stiff with cold. As I’d expected, it is blank, and it takes me several different revealling charms before the handwriting materialises.

_I hope this reaches you without too much delay. It’s too far for one owl alone to make the trip, and I’m relying on their international relay system, which, though not ideal, is probably far safer and more discreet than trying to Floo-call. I will be brief. I went to see E. this afternoon. He is not well, but he is coherent. He was reluctant to speak with me, and I had to resort to means of persuasion that I would have preferred not to. I fear this may mean the end of my marriage if my husband were to find out, but I’ll deal with the repercussions when they arise. I have my own bone of contention to pick with him. With all of them, for that matter._

_E. said he was surveying one of the warehouses when he was stunned from behind and abducted. At first he thought his captor intended to kill him, but later realised that he’d been captured alive for a reason. He doesn’t know why – or what his captor did to him – because he was rendered unconscious just before the ritual began. All he remembers is waking, days later, in the squad’s flat. He could neither move nor speak, but he gathered that H. had rescued him somehow. He also gathered that H. had agreed to take his place in whatever ritual had been prepared for him. But that is all he knew for sure. Everything else he told me was nothing more than conjecture, including his suspicion that the wizard who abducted him was M._

_I should tell you what his other conjecture was, but I want to caution you first. E. doesn’t know much more than we do, and he could very well be wrong. But I thought you should know nonetheless. E. doesn’t believe that H. is dead. He also believes the squad knows this. I hope and pray that he’s right on the first count, but if he’s also right on the second count, my husband may not be the only one in this marriage looking for a divorce._

_I’ve been doing some research this afternoon. I learned very little from it, but if it’s true that H. is alive then we need to act quickly. I think it’s possible that whatever it was that M. was trying to do, it depended on the living magick of another wizard. I believe that is why E. was left alive but essentially rendered a Squib. I think he was used as the magical equivalent of a Muggle battery to accomplish something. Merlin only knows what, though, and I shudder to think. If H. took his place, he may still be alive, but he may also be drained and vulnerable and essentially helpless._

_I know I’m giving you very little to go on. I am sorry. But I also wanted you to know what little I’ve learned as soon as I learned it. And I will kick myself for telling you this later if it all turns out to be nothing but false hope. But if I learned anything from losing Ron it’s that sometimes you need to act first and ask questions later. So that’s what I’m doing, even though it goes against my grain. I will send along everything I discover. In the meantime, be careful._

There is no signature, but of course I know that it’s from Hermione. My eyes return to the sentence that made my heart leap into my throat, and I read again. And again.

_E. doesn’t believe that H. is dead._

I feel light-headed and dizzy with a thousand different emotions, not least of which is fury at myself for not having considered the possibility. But Harry had been so sure he would die that when Neville told me they’d lost track of his vital signs, I’d jumped immediately to that conclusion . . .

With my heart pounding in my throat, I tuck the parchment into the inside breast pocket of my robes and head back to the house, my boots crunching on the frozen, wind-slabbed snow. Alyosha is standing in the open doorway waiting for me, a little dark figure against a rectangle of light. Behind him, the cooks are bustling about, preparing our supper. The smell of minced onion and pork floats on the air along with the head cook’s shouted directions and Alyosha’s torrent of questions.

“Where did you go?” he demands. “What’s out there? Were you talking to that owl? What did it want? What did you put in your pocket?”

I am suddenly deliriously happy, and the shock of it almost drops me to my knees just as efficiently as my grief had. If Hermione were here, I have no doubt that I would grab her and kiss her. Instead I make due with my diminutive Siberian host.

“Ugh! Stop!” he squawks when I stoop to kiss his round cheek. But he’s beaming, and it’s hard to take his displeasure seriously when he grabs my hand and tugs me inside.

“We’re having _pelmeni_ for supper,” he tells me as we pass through the large kitchen with its multitude of copper pots hanging from massive smoked-darkened beams. The cooks smile indulgently when he says something to them in Russian, which, judging from his tone, could only be an order of some ilk.

It is a good thing he came looking for me, otherwise I may not have found my way back to the dining room in time for supper. Although it looks smaller from the outside than our mid-sized mansions in England, the interior of the Fyodorovna home has been magically enlarged to a degree I scarcely imagined possible. Nikolai, Alexandra’s husband, gave me a tour the day we’d arrived, and I’d counted more than a hundred rooms before we broke for tea. Each room had a story behind it – some of them joyous and some of them sad – and I’d been unsurprised to learn that most involved children in one way or another.

_“In Siberia, children are the greatest blessing a family can receive,”_ Nikolai told me in his thick, almost unintelligible accent. _“That is why we have so many. Not because our wives are irresistible,”_ he said with a sly wink. _“But do not mention this to Alexandra.”_

“Ah, there you are!” Nikolai exclaims when Alyosha propels us headlong into the enormous high-ceilinged dining room. “Aly said you must be lost. He insisted on going in search of you.”

“I may have been, indeed, if he hadn’t found me,” I say breathlessly, my cheeks still stinging from the transition between the icy night air and warm fire-lit rooms. “I apologise for being late. I hope you didn’t delay eating on my account.”

“Not at all,” says Alexandra, standing. “Please take the place at the other end of the table – as our esteemed guest.”

I bow my head in thanks and walk the length of the table to the chair at the far end with its back to the window. Alyosha takes the chair directly to my right, looking smug, and I can only assume that he battled with Anna for it because she gives him a sour glare as he settles himself theatrically.

This is my second full day in Irkutsk, but last night we’d dined informally in one of the smaller dining rooms. Alexandra and the children were still tired after the long train ride and the panic of Alyosha losing his tooth, and the focus had been on reacquainting themselves with Nikolai. Judging from the questions they asked him and that he asked them, they must have been in St. Petersburg for several months. Which certainly went some distance (if not all the way) toward explaining why they’d had so much stuff with them.

But tonight is different, and I wonder whether it is more the norm or if a special effort was made on my account. In addition to Nikolai and Alexandra and their five children, there are several other witches and wizards seated at the table, and on one side, right in the middle of the Fyodorovna children, is an empty place setting with a single white rose on the center of the plate.

“May I present Lord Draco Lucius Malfoy of Wiltshire, England,” Nikolai says, standing along with his wife at the opposite end of the table. He follows the announcement with several sentences in Russian, which I assume are meant for those present who did not speak English. Nikolai then introduces the other guests, and they stand, one by one, to bow in my direction. No reference is made to the empty place setting.

One of the wizards Nikolai introduces is a patron of a regional Muggle dance company, and he quizzes me extensively on the performances by the Mariinsky Ballet that I’d seen in St. Petersburg. What had I thought of their sets? Their costumes? Had I a chance to see Ulyana Lopatkina dance yet? And with each additional question, I thank Hermione for deciding to give me hope that Harry is alive. Because otherwise I may not have made it past the soup course. Each question the man asks me calls to mind a memory of Harry. We’d seen three performances at the Mariinsky while he’d lived in St. Petersburg, and I can remember every detail of every one, right down to which pair of cufflinks Harry had worn that night . . .

“You must see the Krasnoyarsk Dance Company before you leave Irkutsk,” the wizard tells me. “They may not be as good as the Mariinsky Ballet . . .”

“But then again, who is?” his wife interjects.

“. . . but they are quite good, nonetheless.”

“I would like that very much,” I say, trying to suppress a smile when I notice Alyosha reaching over to spear one of my _pelmeni_ with his fork. “Are they performing at the moment?”

“ _Swan Lake_ ,” he says with an apologetic grimace. “A cliche, I know, but it was either that or _The Nutcracker_ , and I have told them that if I must sit through another performance of that wretched ballet, then they had better be dancing it in the nude or I will keep my roubles for myself.”

His wife clucks disapprovingly.

“ _Swan Lake_ is my favourite ballet,” announces Alyosha.

“It’s the only ballet you’ve ever seen,” says Anna.

He glares at her.

“That’s not my fault. I was sick last year when you went to see _The Nutcracker_. Without me,” he pouts.

“So,” I say turning to Anna, and gesturing to the empty chair beside her. “Who does that place setting belong to? Do you have another little brother you’re hiding away somewhere?”

She giggles.

“No. That’s our _starets’_ place,” she tells me.

“Really? Does that mean he will be joining us this evening?”

She shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Perhaps. We never know when he will arrive for a visit.”

Olga overhears our conversation.

“Mama wants him to know there is always a place at our table for him,” she tells me. “As there is always a place in our hearts. In fact, she bought him a seat in our box for _Swan Lake_ should he arrive in time.”

“Ah! Good! You already have tickets,” says the wizard I was talking with earlier. “I was going to offer my box, but to be honest it is not very good this year. Did Alexandra also buy a ticket for Lord Malfoy?”

“Yes. She bought them this morning when we went into town. I hope that is all right with you,” Olga says, turning to me with an apology in her eyes. “We would have asked you beforehand, but you were still in your room when we left.”

I feel my face colour. After the others had retired to their rooms last night, I had slipped out of the house and walked every street on this side of the river. Looking for signs of Harry, I’d told myself at the time, although I knew it was just as much an effort to stay awake. I’d dreamt of Harry every night since our second night on the train. Good dreams. Happy dreams. Dreams that left my heart warm and my body aroused. But when I woke, the reality would hit me like a physical blow, plunging me anew into a vat of molten pain until I literally writhed against my fine sheets, my body slick with the sweat of unsated desire and searing pain. Last night I’d been so exhausted when I returned to the house just before dawn that I’d slipped mercifully into a deep and dreamless sleep and didn’t awake until nearly noon.

“No, that’s quite all right,” I assure her. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

She smiles happily before turning back to her plate with a blush.

The meal progresses leisurely and pleasantly, and I find myself careening between near relaxation and acute restlessness. Several times I catch myself clutching the armrests on my chair, my whole body vibrating with suppressed energy. If Harry is alive, then the last thing on earth I want to be doing is sipping a bowl of _borshch_ and chatting about the ballet. But at the same time, I know that right here, at this table surrounded by the whose-who of Irkutsk, is probably the best place I can be. Patience, I admonish myself. A little patience now, and you’ll be rewarded in the end. But it’s difficult, especially when my heart continues to hammer erratically in my throat. To calm it, and myself, I began chanting quietly in my head, a steady mantra in counterpoint with my pounding heart. _I will find you. I will find you. I will find you._

So focused am I on maintaining my composure that I’m taken by surprise when something actually happens. The main course has just appeared when I suddenly feel the unmistakable prickle of powerful magic, making my scalp tingle and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s a sensation not unlike the feeling you get when a lightning storm approaches. I used to attribute it to some unparticularised surge of magical energy, but I now know that it has other sources. Very powerful witches or wizards, for instance. I should know after all. It’s the feeling I get every time I’m within one hundred yards of Harry. My heart lurches in my chest, and as unobtrusively as I am able, I reach for my wand.

Glancing around, I see that I am not alone in sensing something. But while I am alarmed, the faces of the Fyodorovna family and their guests are suffused with joyful surprise.

“Can it be? . . .” exclaims Alexandra, her hand flying like a small nervous bird to her throat. She rises from her chair as the doors open and in walks the singularly most striking man I have ever seen.

“Our _starets_!” Nikolai cries. “You’ve come at last!”

 

To say that the breath is knocked from my lungs like a bludger to the chest would not began to describe what happens to me in that moment as the whole world seems to snap into place like a missing puzzle piece and shrink suddenly to the light glancing off a diamond, off the head of a pin, airless and unbearably tight, balanced on the instant before a powerful explosion. I am staring at the man’s face, and he, in turn, is staring at mine. He smiles benevolently, opening his arms and turning up his palms in a gesture of peaceful greeting. Unblinking, his pale eyes stay locked on mine when he speaks.

“My friends,” he says with an accent even thicker than Nikolai’s, his voice sonorous and as rich as warm honey. “We are in the presence of a great _volkhv_. And an Angleeskee. What an intriguing . . . coincidence.”

 

“Son of a bitch!”

Luna glanced at him, alarmed.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked.

Theo tore his eyes away from the undeniable figure. Even from this distance and despite the lack of light, there was no mistaking Draco Malfoy for anyone else.

“No,” he muttered. “Sorry. Just remembered something I was supposed to do, is all.”

Luna pursed her lips but didn’t say anything more.

“Would you mind if we head back now?” he asked, shifting nervously from one foot to another. He had no desire to confront Malfoy after what had transpired between them less than a week ago. At least not on a dark street with no plan of escape if things went pear-shaped. Plus – and Theo was only somewhat loath to admit this to himself – he wouldn’t mind killing Malfoy and claiming it was self-defense, but he couldn’t do it with Luna there as a witness.

“Sure. All right,” she said reluctantly.

Without waiting to ensure that she is following him, Theo turned and started back the way they had come, all the while keeping Malfoy in the corner of his gaze. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Malfoy was walking purposely toward a large tree, and Theo would swear he’d heard the call of an Eagle Owl coming from that direction only a couple of minutes ago. Who was the bastard receiving letters from in Siberia?

“Son of a _bitch_!” he muttered again.

“Theo, what’s wrong?” Luna asked, trotting beside him, trying to keep up with his long furious strides.

“I told you, nothing,” he snapped.

Luna fell silent, tucking her chin into the collar of her coat.

“Shit,” he said angrily. “I’m an arsehole. Sorry.”

But she didn’t reply.

At least she wasn’t going to contradict him, he thought, although his heart squeezed painfully all the same. Perhaps if he were a different kind of man – a _better_ man – he would have reached out and rested his hand on the delicate curve of her neck. But he wasn’t. And so he didn’t.

Fucking Malfoy! What was he doing here, and who the fuck did he think he was anyway? Theo reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, tugging one from the pack and lighting it with a quick _Incendio_. Just the thought of fumbling with gloved hands to light one of those fucking cardboard Muggle matches was enough to push him over the edge, what with the memory of his last encounter with Malfoy flooding his mind. Merlin! The fucking unmitigated balls of the man! Practicising _Legilimency_ on him without his consent! That – _that_ – was what he’d been trying to tell Neville about. The Draco Malfoy he’d known at Hogwarts. The fucking power-hungry prick who’d browbeat them all into joining Umbridge’s little militia of toadies in training! The fucking egomaniac who’d insisted on the best of everything: the best chairs in the common room, the best cuts of meat at dinner, the best seat on the Quidditch pitch! Not to mention the countless petty humiliations Malfoy had been capable of inflicting. If you had a case of the runs, he’d be sure to announce it to the common room. If you were wanking in one of the showers, he was sure to find you and throw the curtain aside. If you had a crush on a girl, he was sure to tell her. If you’d received a higher mark on an exam than he had, he was sure to whinge and complain to the professor until his grade was changed. And that was _before_ their Sixth Year. After that, Malfoy had graduated from puerile pranks to outright sadism. Theo had come to hate and fear him because he’d sensed that Malfoy had no limits, no boundaries he wouldn’t hesitate to cross if a sufficient incentive presented itself. But later – after Theo had crossed a few boundaries himself – he’d come to loathe Malfoy even more. Because while Theo may have hurt people out of necessity, Malfoy seemed to do it for pleasure. For the thrill of eliciting a different pitched scream for every new technique he tried. When it had come to learning the “art of persuasion,” as their instructor, McNair, had liked to call it, Malfoy hadn’t needed to whinge his way to top marks. He’d earned them fair and square.

“I’m going in here,” Luna said from some ten paces behind him. Theo turned to see her standing with her hand on the door handle of a blini shop. It was a chain. One of the few this far east, and Theo was pretty sure that it’s name in translation was something along the line of “Blini Bob’s.” After the darkness of the streets they’d been walking, the bright lights and blinking neon made his head hurt. He noted that her announcement had not been an invitation. Even though he knew that it was implicitly.

“All right,” he said, hating himself. “I’ll see you back at the flat.”

Of course he couldn’t be sure, but Theo suspected that, looking back, the sight of Luna’s face in that moment would rank right up there on the list of the most painful experiences in his life. She gazed at him with her big blue eyes and then turned to open the door, and Theo felt that she wasn’t so much entering a café as she was slipping out of his life. The door closed behind her with a click.

Theo stood for a long moment in the middle of the icy sidewalk, trying not to let the momentousness of what had just happened sink in. It was amazing, really. How everything could go wrong in the space of an instant. And with nothing more than a couple of sentences. People tend to think that terrible life-altering events are dramatic occurrences. The crunch of metal and bone. The careening green light of a killing curse. The sweaty tangle of sheets and limbs when you walk in on your partner and her clandestine lover. But more often than not, Theo found that the moments that altered his life were surprisingly mundane. The warmth of his mother’s hand on his forehead in the early morning hours and the feel of her hair brushing his face as she’d whispered that his beloved grandmother had died in her sleep. The blandness of the letter from his father that he’d received at Hogwarts, telling him that his mother had “expired in an unfortunate accident.” The matter-of-fact tone in Harry’s voice as he’d told Theo the truth about his mother’s death and the equally matter-of-fact way Harry had handed him back his Death Eater’s mask immediately afterwards. The way the little light, so like the flame from a Muggle match, had simply winked and gone out . . .

Harry.

Just as he had with Luna only moments ago, Theo had turned his back on Harry that night. And under similar circumstances, too. It had been evening. Theo had slopped some of Fairbanks' chili in a bowl and gone straight to his room like a petulant teenager. He’d felt their eyes on him as he’d stalked through the dining room. The only thing that would have made the scene complete was if he’d slammed his door, which, thankfully, he hadn’t. Ten minutes later, he’d heard the anticipated knock.

_“Go away Luna or Elizabeth,”_ he’d said. _“I’m not in the mood to quote/unquote ‘talk about my feelings.’”_

_“How about a walk then.”_

Harry’s voice.

_“No thanks,”_ Theo said, placing his uneaten chili on the floor and reaching for his book.

_“Theo, don’t do this.”_

_“Do what? Refuse to take a walk with you in another fucking blizzard? Forgive me if that doesn’t sound like the most appealing invitation I’ve ever received.”_

_“It’s not a blizzard,”_ Harry countered. _“At least not yet.”_

They were both silent for several moments.

_“Look, Theo, I know you’re angry at me. You haven’t said a word to me since we left St. Petersburg.”_

Theo glared at the door as if Harry could see him through the wood. This was not a conversation he’d been relishing.

_“I don’t know what you’re on about, Potter. All I said is that I don’t want to go for a walk. You’re really turning into a girl, you know that?”_

To his surprise, Harry burst out laughing.

_“Come on, Nott,”_ he said, emphasizing his use of Theo’s surname. _“Open the door.”_

_“Sod off,”_ Theo said, but he’d nonetheless stood and walked over to the door, throwing it open to a momentarily stunned Harry Potter. But Harry had recovered quickly and went to sit on the floor across from Theo’s bed, with his knees up and his back against the wall.

_“Well, at least I’m a girl, and not a five year-old child in a snit,”_ Harry said, grinning. _“Come on, Theo. Let’s not fight. I don’t want to end things on this note.”_

Theo scrubbed his face with his palms.

_“You’re not going to die, Harry. We’re not going to let you,”_ he said wearily without looking up.

_“Well, then, if that’s the case – which I hope it is – then I don’t want to leave the squad with you and me not speaking to each other. How’s that?”_

Theo lifted his head and this time gave Harry a proper glare. One that he could see.

_“Come on, Theo. What is it you’re so hacked off about? Is it me leaving?”_

_“Why don’t you try your_ reason _for leaving!”_ Theo shouted before his brain could intercept his mouth.

He watched numbly as Harry cottoned on, his eyes narrowing from round surprise to angry slits.

_“Tell me,”_ he said slowly and deliberately, _“that this has nothing to do with Draco.”_ He paused. _“Because if it does, Theo, let me warn you that I permit no one, and I do mean no one, to speak ill of him to my face. So if you intend to do so, expect there to be consequences. And perhaps you’d like to consider that possibility for a moment before you say whatever it is you’re thinking of saying.”_

Theo recalled with a shudder the deadly seriousness of Harry’s voice in that moment and how a thousand furious responses had leapt to mind. He’d wanted to shake Harry and scream at him, _What has he done to you?!?_ Because other than an _Imperius_ , how was it possible that Malfoy had come to hold such sway over Harry Potter, of all people? In that moment, Theo had realised, like a punch to the stomach, that more than fifteen years of friendship would end in a heartbeat if he said even _half_ of what he thought about Draco Malfoy. That prospect – of a life without Harry’s friendship – was too awful to contemplate, so instead of all the hatred and invective he longed to heap on Malfoy’s head, he’d merely muttered a simple _I don’t understand, Harry._

And clearly it had been the right decision because he’d watched Harry’s posture relax and his hackles lower visibly.

_“Come on,”_ Harry had said, pushing back against the wall to stand. _“Walk with me. It’s my turn to do the bloody warehouse surveillance. If we go now, we’ll be back before the snow really hits.”_

The adrenaline of the near catastrophic showdown was wearing off, and to his mortification, Theo had felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. It was the stress, he knew. The weeks of working nonstop to counteract the strange and powerful summoning spell on Harry. They were all exhausted – Harry not least of all for being the proverbial rope in their tug of war with Mefodiy. But looking back, Theo knew it was more than stress. It had also been the realisation – the final proof – that he would lose Harry no matter what. No matter whether he lived or died. Because if he lived there would be no way they could remain friends. Not if Harry could love someone like Malfoy.

_“No,”_ he’d said, shaking his head and speaking just as slowly and deliberately as Harry had when he’d warned him not to speak ill of Malfoy. _“No. I don’t feel like it.”_

Harry had stood looking at him for a long moment, the hurt and anger plain to see in his expressive eyes.

_“Fine,”_ he’d said coldly. _“Have it your way.”_ And with that he’d left. First Theo’s room and then the squad’s flat and later that evening, their lives. Theo had awakened from a shallow doze with his book still open across his chest and his reading light on. The rest of the flat was in an uproar, and Theo shook off the last remnants of sleep and ran out of his room, his wand drawn and a hex on his lips.

_“What is it?!”_ he’d shouted. _“What’s going on?!”_

And suddenly Elizabeth had grabbed him and was pulling him toward the thimble-sized vials of blood, which they’d spelled to track each squad member’s vital signs. In the same instant that he realised that one of the red flames hovering above each of the vials was out, he’d also realised to whom the vial belonged.

Harry.

Harry was dead.

And Theo hadn’t even said good-bye.

 

Blinking back sudden tears, Theo squared his shoulders beneath his heavy coat, and without pausing to think of a plan, he turned and started back the way they had come in long angry strides. Mefodiy wasn’t the only one he was going to make pay. Oh no. He had more than one debt to settle before he left this frozen shit hole. And he planned to relish it. Every minute of it.

 

 

I don’t realise that I’ve risen from the table until I notice a roomful of faces staring up at me, their attention diverted from the man standing in the doorway.

“Mefodiy,” I croak, and my wine glass shatters in a explosion of bright shards and claret. Disconcertingly, it splatters across Alyosha’s pale face and white robes. In the periphery of my awareness, I hear Alexandra gasp.

I can tell he’s surprised when he hears his name from my mouth and witnesses my uncontainable surge of magical energy because his eyes widen. But he recovers quickly.

“That is my name,” he says. “How do you know it, friend?”

“I . . . I . . . have heard it spoken before,” I stammer, and I see immediately that he knows it’s a lie.

“Indeed,” he murmurs. “Well, perhaps that is not such a surprise given that I know your name as well, Draco Malfoy.”

He sees the startled look on my face and laughs. But not unpleasantly.

“It is a small world,” he says, making a supplicating gesture with his hands upturned and his arms open. “And there are so few of us,” he adds, spreading his arms even wider to indicate his inclusion of the room and all its occupants and, by extension, the entire wizarding world. “Do we not already know one another in the marrow of our bones? Are we not, all of us, brothers?” He pauses to lift Alexandra’s trembling hand to his lips, “. . . and sisters?”

“Lord Malfoy, are you all right?”

I turn to the man – the amiable patron of the arts – I’d been conversing with earlier. His brow is furrowed, his expression questioning. On my other side, Alyosha’s sisters are cleaning the spilt wine from his robes and his serious little face. They glance at me furtively. Alyosha, however, is less circumspect. He frowns at me openly.

“Why did you do that?” he demands.

I shake my head, trying to clear it. If Harry is still alive – and even if he isn’t – I am certain that this dark haired man who has just removed his cloak and is kissing Alexandra’s cheek and pressing Nikolai’s hand knows where he is. Everything – _everything_ – depends on getting the next couple of hours right.

My heart is back hammering in my throat. I feel sure that it’s there for everyone to see, a feverish pulsing just beneath my skin. Mefodiy stops to kiss each of the children as he makes his way to the empty place at the table with its single white rose, stained now with a smattering of wine red drops. He turns his gaze back to me.

“Please sit,” he says. “I cannot feel at ease knowing that I have discomfited a guest of Nikolai and Alexandra. Not to mention a wizard of your status and evident power.”

He bows in a show of humility and respect, and I am suddenly reminded of my dinner with Alberic Carrow and how he had been so eager to bow before me, to submit himself to a new Dark Lord. But the reminder comes not through any similarity between Carrow and the wizard now before me. Rather it arises from the magnitude of the dissimilarities. Where Carrow’s bow had been obsequious and fawning and transparent as a pane of glass, Mefodiy’s is graceful and understated and bestowed without a trace of servility. It rattles me more soundly than I ever have been rattled before. I cannot trust my voice to speak without a quaver, and so I merely take my seat.

Alexandra claps her hands, and I am surrounded by the smoke-like _domovoi_. They take care of the spilt wine and broken glass and fetch me a new plate of food, while I do my best to calm myself and gather my scattered wits. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Alyosha continues to glance between myself and Mefodiy, his expression troubled and grave.

“Tell us of your travels, Father,” Tatiana beseeches. “Did you reach Oymyakon before the river froze like you had hoped?”

Mefodiy turns to her and smiles. His gaze had been so intent upon my face, so searching and intense, that I was sure he’d be annoyed, or at the very least, distracted, by the interruption. But if he is, it does not appear in his face, which remains as placid and serene as an ocean on a foggy windless morning. He turns his attention to her fully, and I sense that the rest of us recede into nothingness as he answers her questions. And in turn, Tatiana’s eyes are locked to his, like a bird’s to a cobra’s. I cannot hear the words he speaks for they are meant for her ears alone, but I can hear the gentle caress of his voice as it rises and falls in a soothing murmur.

“Have you recovered?”

I tear my attention from Mefodiy with far less grace than he had from me and face my neighbour and his wife.

“Yes, thank you,” I reply as evenly as possible. I can tell they’re waiting for some explanation for my reaction, but I have none to offer.

“I am sure you have had a long journey . . . ,” the wife says.

“Yes,” says her husband. “And the trip is so dull, too. All that grass . . .”

I nod, tuning them out and returning my focus to Mefodiy.

_Where is Harry, you son of a bitch?_ I demand. _Because I will find out, and when I do . . ._

My hand twitches against my chest, and my fingers slip between the silver fasteners of my robes to brush the wood of my wand, warm from its proximity with my body. In the same instant, Mefodiy’s eyes leap from Tatiana’s to mine. They do not narrow in fear or enmity but neither are they surprised. He pats Tatiana’s hand where it rests on his arm.

“Forgive me, my dear,” he says softly. “But I must see to something. We shall continue this conversation later over coffee, yes?”

He turns to Alexandra and Nikolai.

“I am sorry to be such a disruption to your gracious meal,” he tells them. “But I think it would be prudent for me to step into the parlour for just a minute with Lord Malfoy. I believe we have . . . something to discuss before we may be at ease in one another’s company.”

Looking much like her young son, Alexandra nods hesitantly, her brow furrowing deeply as she glances between us.

“Is everything all right?”

The question is directed at us both, but I sense that it is meant primarily for me. Despite not knowing how to respond, I open my mouth to speak. Mefodiy cuts me off.

“Of course,” he says soothingly, and I watch Alexandra’s face relax just from the timbre of his voice. “It is merely that we have . . . an acquaintance in common, and it would be prudent to discuss our respective relationships to him before we embark on our own acquaintance.”

I bristle violently at his words, and he must sense it because he moves swiftly, yet with just as much grace as he had before, to leave the table.

“Come, Lord Malfoy,” he says to me, and then to Alexandra and Nikolai, “we will not be long.”

I push my chair away from the table and stand slowly. The world feels suddenly surreal, as if I am in the midst of a waking dream, my every movement slow and heavy as though I’m surrounded by air more resistant than water. Squaring my shoulders beneath my robes, I follow Mefodiy out of the dining room. He turns to close the ornately painted doors with a click, and suddenly we are alone in the dimly lit silence of the hall.

In that instant, I realise just how unaccustomed I’ve become to being in a reactionary mode. In fact, other than Harry, I generally react to no one, out of principle as much as habit. It is a skill one acquires early and young when one is the son of Lucius Malfoy. Always keep the other person uncomfortable and guessing. Never let them correctly anticipate your next move. Leave them squirming and writhing in their own skin like a molting serpent . . .

Mefodiy turns his eyes to me, and I feel myself flinch. The sensation pulls a thousand intricate and conflicting reactions from me. I feel my heart rate increase and my eyes narrow in anger and suspicion while my cock jerks against my groin. He lets his eyes drop, tracing my body from head to foot, and I experience his gaze like covetous hands on my skin. I feel completely stripped and naked. My cock jerks again as it swells suddenly and painfully.

“Ah,” he murmurs. “So much like your Harry.”

My mind goes black with rage and hatred and arousal. I seize my wand, and in a split second it is tucked against the tender pulse point beneath his chin.

He smiles. But just like his laughter earlier, his smile is not unkind. It doesn’t matter though because the first syllables of the _Cruciatus_ have already left my lips.

The final syllable never emerges, and it takes me a full half a minute to realise that I cannot breathe and that my fingers have loosened nervelessly around my wand. He pulls it slowly from my useless hand and tucks it into his robes. And just as I’m beginning to panic at the lack of oxygen, he flicks his fingers as though there were a couple droplets of water on them, and the silencing charm releases its grasp. My hands leap to my throat as I drag mouthfuls of air into my lungs.

“I am sorry,” he says, and I marvel at the fact that his voice indicates he means it sincerely. “I do not wish to harm you, but I cannot abide the _Cruciatus_. It is so barbaric.”

“Harry,” I gasp, still clutching my throat. “What have you done to him?”

He looks at me for a long moment.

“Let us take this conversation to the parlour,” he says as though we were discussing some society scandal and not the life or death of my lover. “I will return your wand to you when we are finished, and you can decide at that time if you wish to kill me.”

He turns and strides purposefully down the long hallway with its dark wainscoting and deep purple carpet runner. I follow him, trying not to think about my unflagging erection and the fact that, viewed from behind, Mefodiy could be Harry’s twin brother. 

It is evident that he knows the house well because he never pauses at an intersection of hallways or stops to push open partially closed doors in search of the right room. From his confidence and ease, he could be the master here instead of the guest. I continue to follow him, chafing at the implied subservience involved. This man may be a powerful wizard, I remind myself, but so am I, and it is unlikely that he has seen even half the things that I have in my life. It should be me making him sweat beneath the high collar of his robes, not vice versa.

At last he turns and enters a room on the left. I follow him, and he closes the doors behind us.

“I would ask you to make yourself comfortable,” he says, “but I doubt that under the circumstances that it is possible.”

I swallow, trying to calm my pounding heart, and take a quick glance around me. We are in one of the dozens of parlours that I saw on my tour with Nikolai. The walls are a dusky red, and the wood floor is so dark as to appear black in the flickering light cast by the flames from the limestone fireplace. Mefodiy had lit them wordlessly the moment we entered, and they blaze brightly as though they’ve been burning for hours. The fire is the only light in the room, and its reflection in the dark glass of the two tall windows is the only movement to be seen.

He takes a seat in one of the leather upholstered ebony armchairs, reclining comfortably and stretching long legs out before him. He is simply, but elegantly dressed. Only his boots suggest anything but an aristocratic background. Thick soled and rugged, they are obviously made for riding or walking and not for show. One hard kick with boots like those would break a man’s ribs as though they were nothing more than twigs. He rests his hands behind his head in a show of unconcerned leisure, but his eyes hold their unrelenting gaze on me.

“You know Harry,” I say at last. “And you know where he is.”

He nods solemnly.

The room lurches alarmingly, and I reach out for the back of the empty chair across from him, searching for support.

“Is he alive?”

My voice is little more than a whisper, and I know that I am making myself weak in his eyes, but I cannot help it. He watches me for a long moment, clearly assessing me, and I wonder what he is looking for. What he wants from me. With a sudden flash of intuition, I opt for an approach I have never used with anyone before except Harry – complete sincerity. And complete submission.

“I don’t care if you wish to toy with me,” I tell him. “I have toyed with many men myself, and perhaps you are karma catching up with me at last. But I beg you . . .”

I swallow hard and lower myself slowly to my knees before him, my hands clearly visible for him to see. He does not move or even flinch when I place them in complete surrender on the ankles of his rough leather boots.

“ . . . I beg you, in the name of all you hold dear, not to toy with me on this one thing. Tell me. Tell me whether Harry is alive.”

I have pleased him. I can see it in his eyes.

“You are not a disappointment, Draco Malfoy,” he says. “And I am used to being disappointed.”

He drops his arms and leans forward to cup my chin in his hand, brushing my cheek with the pad of his thumb. I do not flinch away from his touch. He continues to stroke my cheek as the fire snaps and pops in the heavy silence. At last he moves to trace my lips. His fingers are rough, and his skin smells of cold and snow and trackless forests. I do not let my gaze drop from his.

“Yes,” he whispers, seizing my chin suddenly and dragging me forward and on to his mouth. “Harry is alive.”

The sensation that floods me upon hearing those three words is so overwhelming that I feel the room lurch again. But this time, it doesn’t right itself, and I feel myself go limp in his grasp. I am only vaguely aware of his hands catching my shoulders, stopping me before I can fall and hit my head on the hearthstones and lowering me with infinite care and gentleness to the floor.

He works quickly to unfasten my robes and the collar of my shirt, all the while murmuring in Russian, and I don’t move to stop him, not even when he sees the silver ring on its chain and caresses the skin around where it lays against my chest.

“Is that for your Harry?” he murmurs, and I nod.

“It is a Binding Ring wrought from living flesh. Very dangerous, Draco,” he murmurs. “Very dangerous, in deed. I thought such _koldovstvo_ was not permitted in the land where you come from.”

“It isn’t,” I whisper.

“But yet you use it anyway,” he says, and I hear the subtle undercurrent of admiration in his voice. “You are not cowed by lesser men.”

I do not answer.

“Tell me,” he says as his fingers trail away from the ring to the dimpled scar above my heart from where it was cut. “What won’t you do to have your Harry back again?”

“Nothing,” I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut, swallowing back a wave of nausea and fear. “There is nothing I won’t do.”

He is silent, tracing a circle around my scar wide enough to include the nipple.

“You are wondering whether I did this to Harry, too.”

I do not answer him, but I relax the rigidity of my mind’s barriers. If he needs to see my submission, then this is the only way. I feel him slip gently into my thoughts. It feels more like a caress than an invasion, and I realise that he is good at this. Better than me. A skilled _Legilimens_ if ever there was one. He could do this all the time, and no one would ever know . . .

“I thought so,” he murmurs. “You _do_ wonder. And it excites you. The thought of me touching him. Pleasuring him. I wonder whether he will respond in the same way.”

My eyes fly open.

“Draco,” he says, and I hear clearly the chastisement in his voice. “Tell me you were not planning to keep this,” he pauses to place a lingering open-mouthed kiss against my nipple, “a secret from him?”

I feel my brow furrow in confusion at his evident displeasure. I need to know what he wants from me.

“I will do anything,” I say. “Anything you wish. Just tell me what to do.”

He looks up at me through coal black fringe and smiles.

“He said the exact same thing,” he says. “Your Harry said that exact same thing.”

My body suddenly convulses in a surge of anguish and terror and suppressed arousal.

“Ah,” he murmurs against my throat. “That hurt, didn’t it?”

“He didn’t,” I gasp. “I don’t believe you. Harry is stronger than that. Stronger than me. I am the weak one . . .”

“Being willing to sacrifice in the name of love is not a weakness, Draco,” he says sternly.

I choke on a sob.

“You’re confusing me!”

“Hush,” he whispers, tenderly brushing the hair out of my eyes. I am shocked – utterly stunned – by what I see in his face. He smiles.

“That’s right,” he murmurs soothingly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Without blinking, the tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes and roll down my temples and into my hair.

“Why _not_?” I spit at him. “ _Why not?_ ”

“It is quite simple, really. I am a healer. I do not wish to cause pain, only to help ease it.”

I twist on to my side and curl around him, my body wracked with sobs.

“What is wrong, Draco?” he asks, and I hear the unmistakable confusion in his voice. “Why is that not a relief?”

It takes me too long to gather my composure, but he shows no sign of impatience. Instead, he merely strokes my back with long slow sweeps of his hand.

“Because,” I gasp, “because there is nothing else I can give you.”

He is silent for a long time, and slowly my breathing returns to normal. I wipe my nose gracelessly with the back of my hand, and he captures my wrist, turning it upward and exposing the razor scars.

“You did this,” he says. “You did this to yourself.”

I nod.

“Because you believe you cannot live without him.”

I nod again.

He rises suddenly in a single fluid movement and strides to the other side of the room. With his back still turned to me, he rests his hand against the wall and rests his head wearily on his arm.

“You believe I am evil,” he says.

I push myself up from the floor and lean against his empty chair.

“I don’t know what to believe,” I say with complete frankness and honesty.

“But I took from you the one you love most in this world, the one you love more than your own life.”

I say nothing, hoping that my silence will provide the only answer to that question that I am capable of giving.

“Would it shock you to learn that I know what it is like – to love someone more than your own life?”

“No,” I whisper, and I am stunned not only at my answer but at the fact that I mean it.

He turns to me with a sad, but genuine, smile.

“It is true,” he says. “All that I do – all that I’ve ever done – is for . . .”

He pauses, staring at me.

“I have done you a great wrong in the name of love,” he says at last, and I hear epiphany and defeat in equal measure in his voice.

I have no idea what makes me do it, but I stand and go to him. For the briefest of seconds I consider an _Imperio_ , but dismiss it just as quickly. I have been under an _Imperious_ before, and I know what it feels like. This is my own will at work. My own deepest instincts and intuitions. He watches me approach with his pale eyes, paler even than my own. And those eyes never leave mine when I stand before him and place my palms against his chest. He does not return my touch, but I sense that he is not adverse to it. Slowly, carefully, I undo the unfamiliar fastenings on his robes.

“Let me make love to you,” he says steadily. “Give yourself to me like you would to him. I want to know how it feels. To be desired like that.”

My hands start to shake, and he catches them in his and squeezes hard. Painfully hard. My eyes fly to his, my fear renewed and stoked high in an instant.

“Because,” he says, “if I give you back the one _you_ love, it will kill the one _I_ love. As surely as though I drove a knife through her heart with my own hand. You owe me that much at least. I never had her. She was never mine to have. You owe me that knowledge. That knowledge and one night.”

His eyes blaze fiercely but not unkindly.

“You knew I would come,” I whisper.

He nods.

“As soon as I saw his mind, I knew I would have to face you. That you would not be able to let him go.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

He smiles sadly.

“You still don’t understand,” he sighs. “Perhaps you cannot. Perhaps you never will. There is a great well of sadness in your heart. A great sickness. You share that with your Harry. Perhaps that is how you found each other in this vast world. I do not know. But I did not kill you, Draco, because I will not be love’s executioner. It would be an evil thing. To kill one great love for another.”

I frown, my heart thudding painfully in my chest.

“But that’s what I am about to do,” I say. “In taking back Harry I will somehow be killing this woman who you love. I will be killing her and probably you. How is that not killing one great love for another, as you put it?”

“It is . . . complicated,” he murmurs and pulls me to him. “But it is my choice. If you accept the terms of the contract, of course.”

Acting again on sheer instinct, I take his hand in mine, placing his palm against my belly, and slide it slowly down to my groin and the swell of my erection. His hand closes over me, warm and reverent.

“I accept,” I whisper. And then, swallowing hard, I add, “and not just for Harry, but for me, too. Take me. I am yours.”

His other hand slides up my back until he is cradling my head while he continues to stroke my cock. He whispers something in Russian against my throat as I wrap my arms around his neck and roll my hips into his caress. Behind us, the fire blazes brighter, and beyond the dark windows, the snow that had been threatening for hours starts to fall.

 

Theo shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and cursed the sky. It would have to snow. On either side of him, the stone mansions seemed to recede behind a gauzy curtain, and his own breath sounded loud and harsh in the heavy snow-filled silence. It hadn’t snowed this hard since the night Harry died.

Malfoy. The name was a cinder in his mouth, burning a hole through all his thoughts. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Theo knew that it was a classic case of transference, but he didn’t care. They would find Mefodiy. If the Minister recalled them before they had the chance, he and Neville would quit the squad and do it on their own. It was simply not a question of if. Only of when. But there had been no sign of him for weeks, and in the meantime Draco Malfoy had shown up. Ensconced in one of these fancy houses just as he was back in England. Not that that was any big surprise to Theo. British or Russian, these privileged cunts were all the same. One big fucking international club whose membership had been closed off to people like him centuries ago.

It took him a long time to find the right house, and he had to backtrack more than once. It never ceased to amaze him how much snow could change everything. Things that during the day and under a clear blue sky looked one way, looked completely different in snow-filled darkness. But at last he found the house where he and Luna had been earlier and he’d seen Malfoy slip from a side door. Theo crossed to the opposite side of the street, shrinking back into the shadows and stubbing out his cigarette with a hiss. He had little doubt that this was the home of a wizarding family, although it was not one of the few he’d come to know since arriving in Irkutsk. There was no way Malfoy would be staying with a bunch of Muggles. Theo almost giggled at the mere thought.

There were lights in several windows, and Theo was careful to stay well out of the reach of their bright rectangles as well as any potential wards. The first windows he looked in and the brightest belonged to a high-ceilinged dining room where he saw at least a couple dozen witches and wizards in dress robes sitting at a table. He stood in the shadows watching them as they laughed and talked and ate and drank. But there was no sign of Malfoy – only two empty chairs and two untouched plates.

Theo felt the familiar surge of adrenaline, the thrill of the chase. He crouched beneath the windows and crawled along the wall. There were no wards. The owners of the house must have removed or modified them in anticipation of their guests’ arrivals. His feet left deep tracks in the snow, but Theo drew his wand and erased them after each step. Not that it was absolutely necessary. The snow was falling thick enough now that any sign of his presence would be obscured by morning.

Before him, Theo saw a faint ruddy light on the snow, the kind of light thrown from a fire in a darkened room. He crept forward, his wand drawn, until he stood beneath the window. Although he doubted that anyone could see him from inside, he cast a disillusionment charm before craning his neck to peer through the glass. The window was partially obscured with condensation, and it took Theo several minutes to make out the interior. A parlour or library of some kind, with a fireplace and two chairs and a large bookcase against the far wall. No candles or lamps burned, and the room was lit by nothing but the fire in the grate. Theo let out the breath he’d been holding as the realisation that he was not going to find Malfoy sank in. What was he doing here anyway? In the dark. In the cold. He was losing his mind. Neville had warned him of just this kind of thing that morning. He’d pleaded with Theo to get some sleep. He’d even said the one thing they’d had a tacit agreement to never mention – he’d told Theo that it wasn’t his fault. That Harry’s death wasn’t his fault, and he should stop punishing himself. Theo’s only response had been to slam the door to his room so hard that every window in the flat rattled in its frame.

Theo sighed as the adrenaline leeched from his body. It was late. Later than he’d thought, and his was shivering beneath his layers of clothing. He should go back to the flat and talk to Luna if he could. At the very least, he should get some sleep. A clump of snow fell from the roof and landed square on his head. Theo cursed and shook it from his hat, and in that instance, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Shrinking back against the wall, he craned his neck to gaze into the fire-lit room again. But this time he saw them. Two men. One dark and the other light, standing against the far wall. Neither was dressed in more then dark trousers and knee-high black boots, and they were locked in one another’s arms.

In the space of a single minute, Theo went from elation to grief to rage. The blond he recognised, of course. But the other man . . . In the first instant he laid eyes on him, Theo would have sworn it was Harry, and the way that Malfoy was kissing him only confirmed the impression. Theo actually cried out in relief and joy. _Harry!_ But in the very same instant the realisation that Harry was in Malfoy’s arms drove a blade of ice through Theo’s heart, and he wanted nothing more in the world than to _Avada Kedavra_ Malfoy where he stood and . . . and what? Take his place? But before the thought could assume its full shape in Theo’s mind, Malfoy pulled away and reached for the buckle of the other man’s belt, and Theo saw that, in fact, he’d been wrong. The dark haired man was not Harry.

Oh no. He was not Harry at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Stunned, Theo sank to his knees in the deepening snow.

Never. Not even in his wildest imaginings had it occurred to him that Malfoy could be in cahoots with Mefodiy. And Theo knew that was saying something. After all, he’d imagined nearly everything else. He’d imagined that Malfoy was using the Dark Arts to control Harry. He’d imagined that Malfoy was using Harry to rise to power and assume Voldemort’s discarded mantle. He’d even come to imagine, in the spate of sleepless nights since Harry’s death, that Malfoy had had Harry murdered once he realised that Harry would be leaving the squad so as to avoid Harry’s inevitable discovery of his nefarious dealings . . .

But never had he imagined _this_.

Theo’s fingers tightened around his wand as a flood of intense loathing washed over him where he knelt, wet and cold, in the snow. If he had ever doubted that he could actually kill Draco Malfoy, that doubt fled him there and then. Malfoy would die. Tonight. And so would his Dark lord . . . and lover.

Theo clambered to his feet. There were no wards. He could do it here and now. Unless the windows were impervious to curses, he could do it through the glass. It would be better that way. Spectacular and bloody. Theo began to breathe quicker just imagining it. The concussion of an _Avada Kedavra_ cast with every drop of hate he’d milked from the marrow of his bones. Thirty-six panes of frost-etched glass shattering in jagged shards, flying into the room with enough force to embed themselves in the walls . . . and the smooth bare flesh of the bodies he’d glimpsed, oblivious to their fates, tangled together in their twisted lust . . .

Theo shuddered violently, clutched by a desire deeper than he’d ever known possible. Pushing away from the wall, he turned to face the window squarely, wand ready and pointed at the place he knew they’d be, against the far wall, fire light lapping at pale skin. . .

“ _Avada Ke . . ._!”

Theo blinked.

The room was dark, the fire cold in its grate, as though no one had ever been there.

Dark. And empty.

“Dear Merlin,” he groaned aloud and lowered his trembling arm. “ _I am losing my mind!_ ”

 

 

We go to his room.

I am surprised to discover it is not one of the stately bedrooms on the second floor, like the one I’d been given. It’s a servant’s room with low slanting ceilings and dormer windows. Unless we’re standing beneath the highest rafter running the length of the centre of the room, both of us need to stoop or bow our heads. It is a room for governesses or house elves, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in such a space.

He smiles at my obvious confusion.

“I see this was not what you were expecting,” he says.

He goes to the foot of the narrow bed and sits down, facing me. He’d donned his robes again before we left the parlour but neglected to fasten them. My eyes drop from his face to the swath of pale skin running from his throat to the waistband of his trousers and the still-unbuckled belt. He watches me watch him.

“I have never lain with a man before,” he says frankly.

My eyes snap back up to his face.

“No, not even your Harry,” he says, smiling. “Although I was sorely tempted after seeing his memories. The way the two of you make love. It is as though . . .” He pauses. “I can say it in Russian, but not in English . . . It is as though there is no such thing as ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ as ‘love’ and ‘hate,’ ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure.’” He shrugs. “But these things are nothing but words. Nothing in the face of experience.”

I stand, feeling more awkward and uncertain than I’ve felt in years. My body feels too big in the small space – clumsy and oafish. A proverbial bull in a china shop. As my eyes have adjusted to the dim candle light, I’ve noticed how rustic and Spartan the decor is. There is a plain pine wardrobe, a bookcase with several leather-bound volumes, a wash stand with a basin and a pitcher, and a three-legged stool by the little fireplace, but other than these things and the bed, there is no furniture. So unlike my room two flights below with its writing desk and armoire and four upholstered armchairs. Not to mention the king-sized bed. His room looks scarcely big enough for one man, let alone two. I shift from one foot to the other. And back again.

“Perhaps we should go to my room . . .”

“I’d rather not,” he says, moving to make room for me on the bed beside him. The quilt, I notice for the first time, is worn and soft and looks as though it was hand-stitched from brightly coloured scraps of cloth. “I find those rooms . . . so cold. So barren.”

He rests his hand almost chastely – or shyly – on my knee. I watch his face, searching for a sign – any sign – as to how best to proceed. My mind is swarming with questions I long to ask, foremost, of course, being where is Harry? But I sense that he is skimming over the surface of my thoughts, much like Alyosha reads with a finger tracing each sentence, and thus giving voice to my questions would be superfluous . . . and perhaps unwise. I sense no hostility from him, but I am not stupid. He is, without a doubt, one of the most innately powerful wizards I have ever encountered . . . I feel a shudder of fear and desire ripple through me.

“That excites you,” he murmurs, his hand sliding up my thigh so that his fingertips trace the in-seam of my trousers. I feel them, not as though they are touching cloth and thread, but a nerve connected directly to my cock. “Power excites you. Is that why you gave yourself to Harry? . . . To your father? Is that why you’re giving yourself to me?”

Stung, I leap up from the bed with a cry and nearly brain myself on the low ceiling.

“I . . . I never . . . ,” I stammer. There are so many accusations implicit in that simple handful of words. I don’t even know where to begin . . .

“Never what? Gave yourself to your father? Whored yourself for power? _To_ power? Or perhaps you never gave yourself to Harry. Which is it, Draco? Or is it all of the above?”

I feel myself trembling with a potent combination of rage and repulsion and desire. It is rapidly dawning on me that I am dealing with a man who is not my equal, but my better. In every way imaginable. He could utterly dominate me if he wished.

“What can I give you?” I ask. “What can I give you that you don’t already have. Or that you couldn’t simply take if you wanted?”

He laughs and pats the bed beside him.

“Come here, Draco,” he says.

But I shake my head. He watches me for a very long moment. At last he sighs deeply.

“Do you always bargain for everything?”

“Forgive me, but I believe that’s the entire premise we’re working from here,” I reply. “I give you everything that you want in exchange for the one thing . . .”

“. . . you want more than anything in this world,” he says, completing my sentence for me. “Those are high stakes. But tell me, Draco. What is it that you offered your father? What did that little boy give away all those years ago? Perhaps if you found it again, you could stop searching for it.”

Something inside me snaps upon hearing his words – snaps audibly, like a dry twig.

“Do you really want to know?” I half-whisper, half-hiss. “Are you really curious? Do you even care? Or is this just part of the little game we’re playing? . . .”

I gasp out loud, my hand flying to cover my mouth as though I could still trap the words inside. As soon as they leave my lips, I long to draw them back. I swallow hard, suddenly terrified.

“I’m sorry. Oh gods, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

A vision of Harry flashes before my eyes as Hermione’s words return to me: _He may still be alive, but he may also be drained and vulnerable and essentially helpless_. I suddenly see him – bound and gagged. Cold and alone. I choke on a sob and sink to my knees.

“I’ll be good. I promise. I’ll do anything. Anything. Tell you anything. Do anything. Let you do anything . . .”

He pushes off the bed and comes to kneel before me, his knees in the V of my thighs and his face level with mine.

“That’s it, is it not?” he says, cupping his hand beneath my chin and raising my eyes to meet his.

“What?” I ask, frustrated and frightened and confused.

“That’s what you gave to him. To that brilliant and dangerous man who called you ‘son.’ You gave him your complete and unquestioning obedience. Now, tell me, Draco. Since you’re so fond of bargaining. Was it worth it? Whatever it was that he gave you in return?”

I stare into his eyes, only vaguely aware of the tears still tracking down my cheeks, as he goes where no one – not even Harry – has ever gone. Into a place so deep and dark that the sun scarcely touches it, where thoughts swim, blind and misshapen, beneath fathom upon fathom of mental wards, most of which, by this time, even I have forgotten how to dismantle.

He probes gently as if those ancient memories were still-fresh wounds. I stare at him, unable to move or speak or even blink. At last he withdraws slowly from my mind, remnants of my dark thoughts still clinging to him like lamprey eels, and I am reminded, suddenly, of the time I caught a honey bee in a childish summoning spell. It was a hazy summer afternoon, and I was lying in the grass on the Manor’s lawns, no doubt lonely and bored, caught in one of the airless valleys between the mountains of terror that was my youth. I was very young, and my magic was undisciplined. It took me forever to draw the bee to me as it struggled violently against the foreign unseen force. At last it was close enough for me to stun it. I could have killed it if I’d wished, but that was not what I wanted. I _wanted_ it alive. I wanted it to know what was about to happen to it. I rolled over on to my belly and pinned the bee gently with the tip of my wand, and then, slowly and deliberately, I pulled out its stinger. Its source of potency and strength. And I noted as I did so that the bee did not surrender it willingly. Despite being stunned, I felt its tiny life force resist with all its might, and when the stinger finally pulled free, it came with half the bee’s guts and tissue, and I had to flick it hard with my thumb nail to get it off my finger. Fascinated, I felt the world recede away from me, and for the first time, I forgot everything. Even my own name. As I removed the stunning spell and watched the bee slowly, and inexorably, die.

He looks at me and says something in Russian. A low murmur like a trickle of water through thawing ice. And as he speaks, he strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers. I emerge slowly from the past, from the place he’d taken me, from the place I once feared I might never escape. Or worse, that there was no other place to escape to . . .

“He is alone,” Mefodiy murmurs in English, and only when I blink and meet that pale blue gaze do I realise that my eyes had drifted shut. “Your Harry is alone, but he is not bound, nor cold, nor in pain. He is merely asleep.”

“Can he dream?” I ask, my voice quavering.

“No. He is at peace.”

I release a long trembling sigh of relief.

“All . . .” My voice breaks against the word, like a wave against as a barrier reef. “All that is good in my life – all that is true and not a dream – has come from him.”

“Even the blood?” he asks. “Even the pain?”

I nod.

“ _Especially_ the blood and the pain.”

“What did you think?” he asks. “That he could make you clean and pure again? After all that you have done, Draco?”

I nod again.

He furrows his brow.

“Did it work?”

I gaze at him for a long moment, making sure that I’m right. That I am one hundred percent right, before I speak.

“Yes,” I say at last. “Yes, it did work. And I can make it work for you, too. Even after all that _you_ have done, Mefodiy.”

 

Stumbling and flailing like a drunk man, Theo staggered around the mansion, one hand braced against the rough granite wall and the other clutching his wand. His breath rasped in the silent snow-filled air. There had to be a way in other than the front or kitchen doors. No house this big could have only two means of ingress and egress . . .

His mind was babbling at him, and he knew it. He couldn’t remember feeling this frantic, this _crazed_ , since the last battle with Voldemort. He knew he was not thinking clearly. He knew he was exhausted and heartsick and half out of his head, but he knew that what he’d seen was real. He _knew_ he’d seen Malfoy and Mefodiy, and he knew they hadn’t been clutching each other like that because they were wrestling for control of a wand. No, sir. Theo knew what Malfoy looked like when he was kissing someone. After all, he had seen Malfoy in a similar pose and state of undress the night Theo had broken into Harry’s apartment. He’d watched as Malfoy’s hands had grasped Harry’s wrists and slid slowly upwards until they cinched Harry’s biceps. He’d watched as Harry’s hands rested on Malfoy’s waist, and Malfoy leaned in to kiss his mouth, tilting his head so far to the side, that Theo had had a wholly unobstructed view of Harry’s face as he closed his eyes and returned Malfoy’s kiss. They’d stood like that for an eternity, a whole six inches between them, connected only at their hands and mouths. Kissing and kissing and kissing until Theo thought he would scream. It would have been easier if they’d simply gone at each other, groping and rutting and fucking. That kiss had been far more intimate than any sex act could have been. Their concentration had been so utterly focused on those six points of contact, on reacquainting themselves with the taste and feel of each other’s mouth. In fact, Theo suspected that even if he _had_ screamed his frustration, neither of them would have noticed. Or cared.

Theo stumbled in a drift of snow and had to catch his fall with his wand hand. As he’d come around the east side of the house, he’d realised that a wind was picking up, blowing the snow from the neighbours’ rooftops and the boughs of trees and throwing it, stinging like sand, against his face. He must have been protected on the other side, but here the wind bit through his coat and the layers of clothes beneath. He muttered a warming charm, but it seemed to have little effect.

At long last he found a narrow stone staircase, slicked with ice, leading down into the foundation. Lowering himself slowly, he paused and searched for wards or protective alarm spells, but there were none. Not that that was entirely unexpected. Wards seemed to be a European invention. The few witches and wizards Theo had met in Russia seemed to favour their ancient protective spells, which allowed people to come and go freely but detected certain kinds of malevolent magic or ill intent toward specific members of the household. It was intriguing, actually, and he and Neville and Harry had got in a big debate over dinner one evening about why everyone in England had evisceration wards, while in Russia, a country with a far bloodier recent history, everyone used subtle natural protective charms, sometimes crafted out of nothing more deadly than native plants and stones. Neville and Harry had both thought it was because Russians were less uptight about their possessions, but Theo had argued that it had less to do with a fear of theft than it did with a more fluid concept of what – and who – comprised a household. When friends and neighbours and service staff were all considered part of a family’s “household,” the potential of an evisceration ward working inadvertent harm increased dramatically . . .

Theo pushed against the heavy wooden door with his shoulder, but it didn’t budge. Nor was there a handle or latch that he could discern. Fortunately, however, Theo was the squad’s expert at breaking and entering. There were few places to which he could not gain entrance with the right combination of spells. He tried a couple but to no avail. Surprised, he tried a few more, but when those, too, didn’t work, he traced the edges of the door with his wand and whispered the secret incantation he’d developed. No one except Neville and Harry knew about it, and he rarely used it because it left behind a clear and traceable magical signature, but he hadn’t come this far and frozen his balls off to be turned back at one unopenable door. Taking a deep breath, Theo threw his weight against the weather-worn wood, and it fell inward with a crash.

He lay for several minutes, trying to still his pounding heart and letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. Judging from the smell of earth and cold stone, he figured he must be in a cellar of some kind, although the absence of any other smells suggested it was not used for storage of food or wine or anything else for that matter. Theo pulled his gloves off and felt for the floor. He was not surprised to feel hard-packed dirt beneath his fingers, but he was surprised by how dry it was. Although rustic and unused, the cellars were obviously well built and well cared for.

At last Theo pushed himself up off the broken door and lifted it, sealing it back in place as securely as he could. Now that his breathing had steadied, he realised just how silent everything was. There were no sounds of footsteps or voices about his head, and he figured the floors on the first level must be made of stone or marble and overlaid with wood and carpet. He held his breath. Nothing moved. Nothing creaked or groaned. If this were a Muggle house, there would be the static hiss of electricity or the menacing huff of a furnace. But it wasn’t a Muggle house, and there weren’t even pipes to gurgle and slosh like the bowels of a great troll. All was silent, and for a moment, he almost forgot that at least three dozen people and assorted house sprites were moving around above him, among them two powerful Dark wizards. Everything seemed so peaceful and quiet, remote from the wailing wind and snow outside.

Theo whispered a _Lumos_ and crept slowly along the wall, careful to avoid any obstacles on the floor. He’d already made an unseemly amount of commotion when the door had fallen in. If anyone had been alerted to his entrance, they could be listening, ears straining, and Theo didn’t want to give them a reason to investigate further.

The faint glow from his wand had the paradoxical effect of making everything seem even murkier than it had before, as though the darkness was an essence that the light pushed asunder like a stone in the middle of a current, causing it to pool and eddy on either side. Theo pressed on, his senses heightened and alert. The ground was level and smooth under his feet, and to his surprise, given the closeness of the air, the ceiling was more than a foot above the top of his head. The rest of the house must be big indeed if all of this space could be left empty. If this were Theo’s home, there would be boxes and shite everywhere. Luna always teased him about being a pack rat. She’d told him it was proof that, despite his adamant denials, he had a sentimental heart. Theo had preferred to believe it was merely laziness – not wanting to take the time to sift through the detritus of more than thirty-five years of living. But at the end of the day, he suspected she was right. There were certain people in his life – among them Luna – who, once they touched something, even if it was a film ticket stub or a discarded fortune from a fortune cookie, he could not bear to throw it away. He had boxes and boxes of little things like that, and part of him kept believing – _hoping_ – that one day he’d forget to whom each precious inconsequential item had belonged, so that he could throw the shite out. But it never happened. Every time he returned to Blackpool after each mission to the little house he’d grown up in and inherited after his father’s death, he’d try to chuck it all. He’d even drag the bins in from garage, but he could never bring himself to fill them. Not when the single mateless glove still smelled like his mother’s perfume. Not when the empty Tennent’s can still reminded him of the first time he and Harry got pissed together, sitting in Harry’s unfurnished flat, the ink still drying on the title papers. Not when the ridiculous hummingbird earring chirped very un-hummingbird-like and reminded him of the night he made love to Luna until the sun came up . . .

Theo shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. In a pitch-black cellar, literally under the feet of Malfoy and Mefodiy, was definitely _not_ the place he wanted to get emotional and lose his head. He actually slapped his cheeks. In more ways than he could count, this was utterly and monumentally stupid. If Neville knew what he was doing – even if he didn’t know it involved Malfoy – he would fire Theo in a heartbeat. He knew he had to remain focused and calm. He had to find Malfoy and Mefodiy, and he had to kill them. And then he had to get back to the flat as quickly as possible and never – ever – tell a soul what he had done. When the news of Mefodiy’s sudden death began to circulate, he would have to act as surprised as everyone else.

How big was this fucking cellar anyway, Theo wondered as he continued to creep along. Between the darkness and the silence and his straying thoughts, he’d completely lost track of time. An hour could have passed, or twenty minutes. He had no clue. Theo paused and dragged his hat off his head, and scratching his scalp beneath his thickly matted hair, which hadn’t been hat-free since sometime that afternoon. Fuck, but it had got warm all of a sudden! He drew his sleeve over his brow. It had been a long time since he’d felt sweat on his skin. Not since summer and certainly not since he’d come to this freezing wasteland. He unbuttoned his coat before hunkering down and continuing his slow journey. There had to be an internal stairway somewhere. That door couldn’t be the only entrance to the cellars, could it?

Theo was just on the verge of making his _Lumos_ brighter when he saw it. He’d reached the end of the long wall he’d been following, when there, tucked snugly into the corner, he saw a low wood-beamed bed, simply constructed but sturdy and comfortable looking. He stopped short, shocked to discover anything at all in this vast empty space.

Slowly, cautiously, Theo crept forward, dimming his wand to the greatest possible extent without letting it wink out. There were thick blankets and many pillows on the bed, and at first Theo thought that was all. But then he saw it, the unmistakable glossy sheen of hair. In an instant, Theo realised that the bed was not unoccupied and that he was looking at the back of a human head.

A shiver coursed the length of his spine, and he gripped his wand tighter.

“Hello?” he whispered, even though he doubted the person could hear him, and even if he could, that he’d understand English. “Are you awake?”

But the figure didn’t stir, and Theo was forced to stand debating himself for a long moment. Should he risk being discovered? Should he just back away and keep searching for a stairway? But at last his curiosity won out, and Theo stepped forward, heart pounding, and lay his hand on the person’s shoulder, pulling him over on to his back.

It took a long time. An eternity, in fact, before Theo could register what he saw before him. He’d half expected a corpse and had braced himself for it, going so far as to cover his mouth and nose with his scarf. But this was no corpse, only a man soundly and deeply asleep.

Theo gasped and dropped to his knees beside the bed, dragging the man toward him and gathering him against his chest. The man neither moved nor responded, but Theo started whispering to him nonetheless. The same words. Over and over again, as he rocked him in his arms.

_Harry_ , he whispered. _Harry, it’s okay. It’s all right. It’s me. Theo. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be all right. I’m here. I’ve found you. I’m here. I’m here. Harry. Harry. Harry._

 

 

He watches me undress, his eyes burning like pale embers. I go slowly. He doesn’t need to ask me; I just know. It has been many, many years since I’ve lain with a straight man, but there have been countless men in-between. Gay or straight or somewhere-in-the-middle, I know how to seduce them all. I am an expert at it.

He is sitting on the narrow bed, leaning back against the rough plaster wall, his knees up and his elbows resting on top of them. His robes are still open, and when I am not holding his eyes, I am tracing that pale seam of muscled flesh. My aim, of course, is to stay erect, and I am prepared even to imagine Harry as I unbutton my shirt, one button at a time. But to my relief – and deepest chagrin – I find that I don’t need to. I am hard for him all on my own.

Once my robes are off and my shirt unbuttoned, I reach behind my head, bowing it slightly, and untie the black ribbon binding my hair. When I look up again, I see that one of his hands has moved from his knee to settle between his legs, and I only realise that I’ve licked my lips when I hear him groan. The first unmistakable indication that he’s given me of his desire.

“When it comes time,” he says, his voice lower and gruffer than it was before, “how will I have you?”

I smile at him and slip my shirt off, one shoulder at a time.

“I thought you told me you watched Harry and me make love.”

He returns my smile.

“I did.”

“Well, then it shouldn’t be a mystery,” I say. “You simply tell me whether you want me on my front or my back and then you put that handsome cock in my arse.”

“Too much English,” he laughs. “But I understand.”

His face grows suddenly serious.

“I want you on your knees,” he says.

_The straight ones always do_ , I think, but smile nonetheless.

“Of course. Anything you want,” I say.

“Ah, but it is not what I want that matters,” he says. “It is what you want. You are giving yourself to me tonight. As though I were him. You cannot pretend that I am him when you are looking at my face.”

I go to sit on the low stool before the fire and tug my boots off, one by one, each ankle balanced on top of my knee. It takes me a while to encourage the snug fitting leather away from my calves. I could do it with a simple _Evanesco_ , but I can tell he enjoys watching the muscles in my arms and shoulders move and the look on my face as I concentrate on my task. If he’s like most men I’ve been with, he’s imagining a similar look of concentrated focus as I slowly and deliberately bring him to orgasm. At last I am shirtless and bare-footed. I stand and reach for my belt.

“Let me,” he says, and when he makes no move to stand, I go to him where he’s moved forward to sit on the foot of the bed. “Closer,” he murmurs, and I step between his open legs.

He rests his hands on my knees and slides them up the outsides of my thighs until he is holding my hips firmly. He is exactly eye-level with the erection straining hard against my trousers. He leans forward, his hands still on my hips, and inhales deeply against the wet patch of wool where the head of my cock is trapped between my body and the unforgiving cloth. Unable to stop myself, I moan deeply and rest my hand on the back of his head.

“You smell like a man,” he says simply when, after several deep inhalations, he leans back and looks up at my face. I gaze down at him with one eyebrow raised, amused.

“I should hope so. Does it repel you?”

He shakes his head.

“Does it excite you?” I whisper, my voice husky and low.

“ _You_ excite me,” he says.

My breath catches at his words. I am again caught between countless conflicting emotions: pleasure and satisfaction that this man – the most handsome and powerful I have ever encountered – should be so deeply affected by me, and self-loathing and disgust that I could even think such things about someone who had harmed Harry. No matter why or for what reasons.

His eyes flash, recalling me from my thoughts.

“Do not think such things,” he growls. “Tonight you are mine. Tonight I am him. You are not being unfaithful.”

I release the breath I’d been holding, shakily. There will be no thoughts of mine that he will not see. Pretending otherwise would be folly.

“I want you,” I say simply. “And not because I am pretending you are Harry. Merlin forgive me, but I want you like I haven’t wanted a man in a long, long time. Not since Harry. I would let you fuck me even if you offered nothing in return because, as you saw for yourself, I’ve never being anything but a whore to power and a slave to my own lust. I offer myself freely and completely. For one night. But there is something you _must_ know. Whatever you saw in Harry’s mind – whatever you felt there – it cannot be duplicated. It’s not an issue of will. It’s simply an unalterable fact. Harry and I have a history together that goes back nearly three decades. For good and bad, he has been my sole obsession for all those years. I am the star to his sun, the ocean to his moon. There is nothing that he says or does or thinks or feels that does not find its echo in the deepest chambers of my heart. When I gave myself to him – for him to break or treasure at his whim – it was forever. And before you imagine that I did nothing but substitute Harry for my father, let me assure you that Lucius Malfoy had my complete and unquestioning obedience – just like you said. But he never had _me_. I have given away countless things in my life – countless parts of myself, bit by bit – but I retained my heart. Keeping it safe until I could give it to Harry, for him, alone, to cherish or to rip apart. It was his choice, and in many ways, I didn’t care which option he chose as long as it was _he_ who did it. . .”

I sink to my knees and cradle his face in my hands.

“. . . as it turned out, he chose to cherish it, and only since you took him from me have I realised just how much . . .” My eyes brim with tears. “Tonight you get my body, Mefodiy. And I give it to you freely, willingly, because I _want_ you to take it. But Harry is the only one who has ever had – and ever _will_ have – my heart. And the way I make love, when my body and my heart are united, is for him alone. It cannot be otherwise, and you _must_ accept that. It cannot be changed.” 

He stares at me for a long time, and I wrestle with my mind to keep the fear at bay. For it is not unlikely that I have eviscerated our agreement with my honesty.

“It is the same for me,” he whispers. “Although she does not know it. I have often thought that were she and I to make love, that I would die of happiness. But it is not to be.”

He leans forward and captures my mouth with his, kissing me deeply, and I surrender to him, letting pleasure and desire turn my mind to a vast snow-covered field, bright and empty under a cold but brilliant sun. After a while he pulls back.

“Your words touch me, Draco. I am what, in Siberia, is called a wandering pilgrim. I have seen many places. Encountered many people. And, as you said, done many things. Some great and some small. Some good and some bad. I have seen much suffering and pain, and in my youth I believed that magic could heal it all. But I have not thought this for many years. For now I know that only love is the cure for suffering. Only love is the antidote to pain. Love not only for another, but for one’s own self. And that is why, Draco Malfoy, you will never know true happiness or peace. Even in the arms of your beloved. And when one day you die, you will burn in the fires of the hell that you, yourself, have created, and you and your father will keep each other company there. For he hates himself for what he did to his son as much as his son hates himself for letting him do it. I see this all quite clearly. And after I have emptied my seed in you, I will weep for you.”

I cry out and try to wrench away from his hands, utterly overwhelmed, but he seizes the ring around my neck – Harry’s ring – and uses the chain to drag me back between his legs as though I were a dog. I feel the clasp break the skin at the nape of my neck. He plunders my mouth mercilessly, and I feel the arousal coursing through him, thick and hot as blood. His words, however, have dampened my own considerably, and I’m scarcely hard any longer. But I am desperate that he not find out. If I had ever once, this evening, been in control of this situation, I have lost it utterly now.

“I said that your words have touched me,” he growls against my mouth. “But they have also angered me. You were foolish, Draco. Foolish to tell me that there is something I cannot have. Again, so like your Harry. He, too, told me that I could not have that friend of his who I’d captured. Or any other of the English wizards. Over his dead body, I think his words were. We could have discussed it. I knew he was powerful. The most powerful wizard I’d ever met. I knew that if we spoke – man to man, wizard to wizard – that he would understand, and we could come to an agreement. But he chose to fight before I could even get the words out, and rather than waste such a fine specimen of wizarding kind by killing him outright, I surrendered his friend. But, like you with your fondness for bargaining, I wanted something in return. I took a piece of his soul every day – every time the wind blew and the snow fell – until, at last, his body had no choice but to follow.”

He paused, seeming to consider something for a moment.

“Come to think of it, I gave him what he wished for,” he said smiling. “After all, I never took one of his friends. They continue their activities, barren of fruit though they be. And now that I have him, I do not need them anymore. Or any other foreign wizard. Like you said, your Harry is strong. Strong enough so that with him I never need to kill another wizard – something that brings my heart some ease.”

I suddenly realise that I have begun to tremble violently. Swallowing hard, I whisper, “But you are going to set him free. You are going to give him back . . .”

“You have altered the terms of our agreement, Draco. And moreover you have displeased me. I will decide in the morning. Now, I believe you were in the middle of getting undressed . . .”

My hands are bound and lashed, and I see now that I was _never_ going to be able to live up to our “agreement,” and he knew it. I choke on a sob as I unbuckle my belt slowly, but not because I’m trying to be seductive. I’m simply buying time now, scrambling to regain my footing and praying that my erection will return. Because I can see, plain as day, that withholding anything more from him will seal Harry’s death, and I’m convinced that my lack of arousal will be seen as just that. Withholding.

“Let me touch you,” I say, pleading with my eyes as well as my voice.

He must see something – Merlin only knows what – in my face because he nods and leans back on his elbows.

Wanting to maintain a submissive posture despite being handed the reins of our encounter, I remain kneeling between his legs. I place my hands high on his thighs, my thumbs resting gently against the soft swell of his balls. He watches me intently as I lean forward and nuzzle his robes open, kissing the pale skin of his belly and chest. He smells like a deep cold river in an even deeper and colder forest. I raise my head and close my mouth over a nipple, feeling it harden instantly. I take the nub of it between my teeth, flicking it with the very tip of my tongue, letting him experience the sensation of almost-pain accompanied by the gentle pulse of pleasure, like a butterfly’s wings. He groans and clutches my head against his chest, urging rougher treatment, and I oblige him by pulling the entire nipple into my mouth and sucking the blood up close to the surface of the skin.

Perhaps in empathy, he reaches for my chest and rolls my nipples between his thumbs and the sides of his index fingers as I switch to his other nipple and resume my biting-butterfly kisses. My body responds thoughtlessly to his touch, and I am vividly reminded why I’d become convinced that no one but Harry should ever touch me. I find it appalling that my body and mind and heart can be sundered like this, as though I were some kind of novelty artifact, which appears whole at first glance but can be disassembled by simply pressing a cleverly concealed lever. If I could, I would render my body incapable of responding to that which my heart does not, but since that aim proved forever elusive, I decided not to test myself – to let my body and my heart seek pleasure in Harry and Harry alone. It had felt so right, I’d wondered how it could have taken me so long to figure it out . . .

But it is for the best tonight that my body responds though my heart has been pierced by words far sharper than blades, and I know it will respond even quicker and surer if physical pain were to replace the aching searing squeeze in my chest.

“Harder,” I murmur against his skin, and he pinches both of my nipples viciously. Reflexively, my hips thrust and catch between his thighs. We are close enough now that our cocks brush through the cloth of our trousers, but only just barely. He pinches me again, and again my hips rock forward. He pulls back slightly so that he can gaze down between us and watch my futile frustrated thrusts. He laughs.

“So like the she-wolf who mounts her mate, though she be the one who will be penetrated,” he says.

I bite down on a groan of mingled frustration and humiliation.

“Just because you’re going to fuck me doesn’t mean that I couldn’t fuck you right back,” I say, shocking myself with my own daring.

He laughs again.

“You have such fight in you. You and Harry are well matched.”

But I don’t want him talking about Harry anymore. I reach out and undo his trousers in one quick motion, and in the next instant pull his cock into my mouth, swallowing the head of it down the back of my throat.

Like every man who has never before had a proper blow job, his hips instantly snap up, but I’m ready for it and catch them before he can slam his cock even further down my throat. Holding him firmly against the mattress, I began sliding my mouth up and down his length, and when I flick my tongue into his slit I hear him say something long and low in Russian followed by my name.

It will afford me no small amount of satisfaction to make him come harder than he’s ever come in his life. It will be my revenge. I close my mouth tighter around him and push his thighs wider apart with my hands, throwing my whole body into the act of pleasuring him. His breathing is ragged and punctuated by moans and sharp Russian words like jagged rocks in a sandy beach. Since freeing his hips, he hasn’t tried to pound himself down my throat again, but he’s thrusting in a shallow repetitive way that lets me know his orgasm is not far off. I pull back and lick up and down the underside of his cock, and he growls viciously, wrapping his fist in my hair. I risk a glance at his face and am surprised to find him watching me intently. Straight men generally close their eyes, but not him. His eyes widen momentarily when they meet mine over the bruise-coloured length of his throbbing cock.

“Now,” he growls. “I want you _now_. Get undressed and get on your knees.”

My stomach clenches in fear and, predictably, renewed lust. He’s not going to know how to prepare my body to accept his, and it’s going to hurt. A lot. My cock hardens fully again at the prospect.

I stand and undo my trousers, pushing them down my thighs and pulling them off each foot, one at a time. He stares at my cock, and I wonder fleetingly if he’s ever seen another man fully erect and ready for intercourse before. Other than in Harry’s mind, that is. I reach down and give myself several long firm strokes, from my balls to the very tip of my cock, where it pokes forth from the retracted foreskin.

He shifts to make room for me on the bed, and I crawl forward on my knees until my forearms rest on the pillow. For the first time since I was a teenager, I feel utterly ridiculous, lying here with my arse in the air. If I were in control of this encounter, we would not yet be anywhere near this point. He wants to fuck me, of course. That’s obvious. But he’s not even close to the place where I could get him to beg for it. Nobody other than Harry orders me on my hands and knees anymore. If I’m going to let myself be fucked by a man, he’s got to crawl for it first. I have to know that he wants it more than he has ever wanted anything in his life. I have to know that he is willing to do things – terrible unthinkable things – before I let him even put so much as a finger in my arse. And as for his prick? He has to be willing to rape and murder his own mother first.

I feel him spread my buttocks and rub the head of his lubricated cock between them, searching for the faint dimple of my anus. And whether it’s due to the lack of control I’m feeling or the memories he’d dredged up earlier, I’m suddenly catapulted back in time to another dark room and another narrow bed where I’d lain with my virgin arse in the air, wondering if the cock searching feverishly for my opening was going to tear me in half when at last it inevitably pushed into me. I cry out when the head breaches my too-tight rim, and the sound could belong to a nineteen year-old boy and not a thirty-eight year-old man. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to clench too hard, waiting for the searing pain that will accompany the first full thrust. But it never comes. Instead I feel him withdraw, and the mattress lurch beneath me as he moves away and stands up.

I wait, holding my breath, wondering what has happened and what may happen next. Have I displeased him? Had he sensed my thoughts and been offended by the implicit comparison between himself and the man who had taken me so roughly all those years ago? I hear him fastening his belt buckle and slowly, carefully, I turn over on to my back. He is moving about the room, dressing hurriedly, obviously distraught. But when I glance at his groin before it disappears behind long robes, I see that his cock is still fully erect, and the angry purple head is visible above his waistband. Whatever has just occurred, apparently it did not involve repulsion toward the act he’d been so close to committing.

He notices me watching him.

“Alyosha,” he says tightly, and I suddenly notice the lines of tension around his mouth and eyes. I push myself up from the bed and place my feet on the floor.

“Has something happened to him?” I ask worriedly. “And how do you know?”

He yanks on his boots and stands, pushing the cuff of his robes up to the middle of his forearm and showing me the thick band of silver circling his right wrist.

“It is tied to him,” he tells me quickly. “It grows warm when he is ill and hot when he is in mortal danger.”

I feel myself frowning deeply.

“Is it hot now?”

“It is very warm,” he says. “I must go to him. Alex . . . his mother will be terrified..”

“I will come with you,” I say, standing. “Perhaps I can help . . .”

He pauses, his hand on the door, and turns to face me. I feel his complete undivided attention settle around me again.

“You care for him.”

And suddenly I realise that it is true. I merely nod.

He drops his hand from the door knob and crosses the room to stand before me. Fully clothed before my nakedness.

“He will be all right,” he says gently. “I will see to it.” He pauses, reaching for my hand and raising it to his lips.

“Please don’t go,” he whispers, brushing my knuckles with chaste dry kisses. There is something in his face that suggests to me that this is the closest he will ever come to begging – and perhaps the closest he’s ever been in his life.

I nod again, and he releases my hand. Slowly he backs toward the door, his eyes on my face the whole way, and reaches blindly for the knob. At first I think it’s out of an unwillingness to show me his back, but then I see the look of pure yearning on his face.

“You are very beautiful,” he says. “In Siberia we have a saying. _Like moonlight on snow_.”

He smiles at me.

“I won’t be gone long. Wait for me here.”

 

As soon as I pull closed the door to my bedroom behind me, I run to the armoire and pull out the small oak chest. In my impatience, it takes me several tries before I can say the unlocking spells clearly enough to cause the lid to spring open. And when it does, I withdraw the velvet wrapped bundle inside and throw the chest unceremoniously on to the bed. My fingers shaking with urgency, I pull the ornate hand-held mirror free and clutch it against my chest, my heart pounding.

Voldemort’s mirror. The Dark artefact of which I’d “relieved” Alberic Carrow only weeks before. It now seemed like an age. I lower my hands and look at the dark glass reflecting nothing. Like a deep lake on a starless night.

I have made many mistakes already this evening, and retrieving the mirror could possibly be the worst. The one that ends both my and Harry’s lives. But I am not foolish enough to believe that my unaided magic or my wits – or my arse, for that matter – are going to suffice.

Taking a deep breath, I cross the room to one of the tall windows looking out over what must, in summer, be the kitchen gardens. At some point while I’d been in Mefodiy’s room, the snow storm had turned into a full-on blizzard. Black skeletal branches dance and beckon beyond the glass. I hold up the mirror. I’ve known of its existence for years and had studied its creation and intended uses for a paper I’d delivered for the Academy at the annual symposium on the Modern Dark Arts. I had often fantasised about holding it in my hands, just as I’m doing now. Not to use it, but just to have it. To hold it. My heart begins to beat faster again as I gaze at it. Had Voldemort ever actually been able to use it? Or had it been far beyond his reach by the time Harry had found him? Or perhaps he’d used it against Harry, but it hadn’t worked? I feel my mind clench with fear at the thought. Because if the mirror hadn’t worked on Harry, then it will not work on Mefodiy . . . 

You’re not thinking clearly, I admonish myself. If Voldemort had used it against Harry and failed, Harry would have discovered it on his fallen body and destroyed it. No, there was no way Voldemort could have had the mirror anywhere near him at the time of his death. The Order had confiscated hundreds of Dark artefacts from the few remaining Death Eaters cowering, suddenly leaderless, in that last concrete bunker. No, Voldemort must have already given the mirror to Carrow for safe keeping . . . I look at it again. Perhaps my first guess was correct. Perhaps it has never been used. In which case, its potency remains untapped . . . and untested. I feel the wave of adrenaline that accompanies this thought, and for the first time since Mefodiy walked into the dining room this evening, I feel firmly in control.

Suddenly, I’m aware of a tiny movement in the darkness beyond my window. With a quick whispered _Nox_ , I douse the lights in my room so that I can see clearly without the reflected bright smears on the glass. Even through the blowing snow, I can see that someone is trying to break open a basement door off the east wing of the house. Instinctively, I lift the mirror and whisper a simple revealing spell into its dark glass, and just as the door gives way, the invisible magical signature the figure used to force it open is revealed to me. Suddenly, I’m back at Hogwarts, infiltrating the wards on my dorm mates’ locked trunks by mimicking their signatures, which I’d been careful to steal examples of and copy at my first opportunity. I knew this signature, all right.

Theodore Nott.

I feel my mind flood with rage and panic in equal measure. That _idiot!_ What was he doing here? If Mefodiy found him, he’d be certain to think that we were working together – me to distract him like the proverbial tart, while Nott investigated. What were the chances, after all, that two English wizards would be in the same Siberian home, on the same night and in the middle of a blizzard, nonetheless? Everything – _everything_ – that I’d hope to accomplish this evening would be undermined in a heartbeat.

I seize my cloak and pull it on, tucking the mirror into the inside breast pocket of my robes. Opening the door to my bedroom, I hear muffled voices coming from the third floor where the family have their rooms. But on the first level, everything seems quiet and still. The guests must have departed when Alyosha fell ill. I dim the lights in the hall as I exit my bedroom and move quickly and quietly towards the stairs. When I reach the landing and am sure that no one has spotted me, I lay my wand, which I’d found resting atop my folded robes after Mefodiy left, across my open palm.

“Point me,” I whisper. “To Theodore Nott.”

 

“Harry, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Theo’s voice sounded loud in the heavy silence of the cellars, and he was suddenly fully and undeniably aware of just how unresponsive the man in his arms actually was.

Theo cursed his own stupidity. He’d been so filled with joy and gratitude at finding Harry alive that he’d neglected to perform even the most rudimentary diagnostic spell. Gently, more gently than he could remember having done anything in his life, Theo settled Harry back against the mattress and reached for his still lit wand where he’d dropped it on the floor.

“Hang in there, Potter,” he said as he pulled the heavy blankets off Harry’s body. He smiled at the false insouciance and bravado behind the words. When all of this was over, and Harry was safe and sound back at the squad’s flat – or even better back in London – they’d have a right laugh over Theo’s abominable bedside manner . . .

The sound of a door creaking open somewhere behind him caused Theo to freeze in the middle of unfastening the strange foreign robes Harry was wearing. _Nox_ , he hissed as his eyes strained against the sudden darkness, and his ears listened for any sign of approaching footsteps. He sat still, holding his breath, his hands splayed protectively against the vulnerable bare skin of Harry’s chest. All thought of finding Malfoy and Mefodiy had flown. The only thing he wanted now was to ensure that Harry was all right and to get him out of there as quickly as possible.

When after several moments, Theo didn’t hear anything more, he let loose his held breath in a long rush.

“Fuck, that scared the shit out of me,” he whispered, almost giggling at the absurdity of talking to Harry at all and the giddiness that surged in to fill the space left by his receding fear. “I’m getting too fucking old for this. Going to have a heart attack one of these days. Hope the Ministry has a fucking decent disability plan. _Lumos_ ,” he whispered and moved quickly to push the robes off Harry’s chest and unbutton his trousers. The first spell that Theo cast on his head and shoulders revealed no obvious injuries or ailments, and Theo was just moving to run his hands over Harry’s chest and stomach when he felt the unmistakable sensation of a wand tip pressed hard against the back of his neck. He froze, his hands still on Harry, and his fingertips just touching the coarse hair beneath the waistband of Harry’s trousers. His wand lay on top of the blankets, more than a foot away.

“ _Expelliarmus_ ,” whispered a voice, and Theo felt a slow creeping horror trickle down his neck as though the wand tip were a knife and had pierced his skin. His wand flew past him into an unseen hand.

“Theodore Nott.”

Theo heard a familiar low grief-torn voice. But now the voice quavered with another emotion. At first he thought it was fear, and he almost laughed because, after all, it was he who was unarmed and powerless. But at last it dawned on him. Malfoy’s voice had not quavered with fear, but with hatred. And rage. The kind of rage that sprouts _Avada Kedavra_ s like a churchyard sprouts daffodils. Suddenly Theo’s laughter bubbled over, and he slumped across Harry’s body, giggling hysterically against the smooth skin of Harry’s stomach, pale and almost blue-tinged in the faint magical light.

“Malfoy,” he gasped. “This is not what it looks like. But go ahead and kill me anyway, you twisted bastard.”

Malfoy joined his laughter, but it was not in comradery. Theo felt another surge of horror at the sound of it.

“Oh no, Theo,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you. That would be just too quick. Too painless. Hermione was right, then. You and Longbottom and the rest of the squad _did_ know Harry was alive . . .”

“What the hell are you on about, Malfoy?” Theo barked. “I just . . .”

“Shut _up!_ ” Malfoy hissed. “Just shut your fucking mouth, Nott. You have no idea – no _fucking_ idea what I am capable of right now, and if you say one more word, I will carve out your liver and eat it for breakfast. While you watch. I just may do that anyway. Because if I find out that you have been coming to him here . . . That you’ve been touching him . . . That you and Longbottom let me _believe_ . . .”

Theo felt a violent shudder seize his captor, causing the tip of his wand to leave Theo’s neck for a split second, and before he could even register that he’d moved, Theo had turned and was reaching for Malfoy’s throat.

But always the Seeker, Malfoy was a half an instant quicker.

“ _Petrificus Totalus!_ ” he shouted, and Theo felt every muscle in his body freeze and solidify like a time-lapse rendering of ice forming on the surface of a pond. With a bone rattling _thud_ , he crashed to the floor beside the bed, and in the next instant, Malfoy was literally clambering over him to get to Harry, his choked voice calling Harry’s name.

Theo lay on his back staring up at the faintly illuminated ceiling and listened as, somewhere above him and to his left, Draco Malfoy rained kisses on Harry’s face and sobbed out his heart on Harry’s chest. It was only a matter of time, he knew. A simple matter of time before one of the squad members glanced over at the vials of blood and saw that he was in trouble. And when that happened, there would be _hell_ to pay.

If he hadn’t been petrified, Theo would have started laughing again.

 


	9. Chapter 9

_Harry._

I am hanging from the cusp of a dream, brought up short in the midst of a long fall as though someone had grabbed the back of my shirt just as I stepped off a cliff.

_Harry._

Time is frozen. Suspended. Balanced like a wine glass on the edge of a table. I am terrified to blink. To close my eyes for even the briefest of seconds. Because he feels so real. So solid and present and alive under my hands. And if this is nothing but a dream . . .

I will not survive the waking.

_Harry._

Somewhere, in some other reality, I feel something give under my knee as I literally scramble to pull myself on to the bed, on top of Harry, and from somewhere equally distant, I realise it’s probably one of Nott’s ribs cracking under my weight. But I couldn’t care less. My only desire is to feel Harry against every inch of my body, to shield him, to warm him, to fuse our flesh in a seamless whole. No one will ever take him from me again. No power on earth can separate us. Not now. Not after I’ve finally found him.

I would sell my soul for fifty hands, like some Hindu god, just so I could touch him everywhere and all at once. He’s warm and smells of sleep, and I realise, with a painful clenching of my heart, that this is exactly how he was the last time I saw him. That night after the dinner with the squad at the Yusupov Palace, when I’d held him in my arms as he drifted off to sleep, tired out from our lovemaking. Merlin, how I’d fought my own exhaustion! I’d been determined to stay awake, to savour the feel of his breath against my neck, the comforting weight of his body pressed from head to toe against my side. I’d been so afraid – rightly, as it turned out – that if I fell asleep, he’d simply slip out of my arms, out of our bed. And out of my life, like a sweet and tranquil dream, like a memory of what it felt like to be happy once. God, how I’ve hated myself ever since! Because I’m convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I hadn’t fallen asleep that night, that I would never have let him go . . .

Somewhere, someone is sobbing like his heart’s been broken, but it cannot be me – not when mine is finally whole again. I kiss Harry’s lips, his eyelids, his chin, the scar on his forehead – even the tip of his nose. His face is wet, and his skin tastes like salt. Perhaps we are by the ocean, walking again along Trebarwith Strand. Perhaps we’ve just played a game of one-on-one Quidditch. Perhaps we’ve just made love, and he’s weeping in joy and release. Perhaps . . .

I take a deep shuddering breath, and the world lunges back into focus. The close, too- warm darkness, the faint glow of my wand, and my heaving gasping sobs surge back. But so, too, does the realisation – the bone-deep _knowledge_ – that this is not a dream. That I am not imagining Harry’s face, the feel of his body beneath mine, the scent of his skin. I stifle another sob, but it breaks free nonetheless.

_Harry._

I hear my voice saying the word this time and watch his face for any indication – no matter how small, how fleeting – of awareness. But there is none. Not even the cadence of his breathing changes. I feel his slow exhalation against my throat, feel his chest rise and fall beneath mine. It would appear that what Mefodiy told me was true: Harry is deeply and soundly asleep.

“ _Enervate_ ,” I whisper, though I know it is futile. Whatever has been done to him, whatever spell or curse he’s under, surely it cannot be broken so easily. And moreover it would be foolish and dangerous for me even to try. It may be that he has to be wakened slowly, gently – like a Muggle diver emerging from the depths – or risk permanent injury.

There is only one wizard who can wake Harry, and he is most likely waiting for me at this very moment, wondering where I am. And what I’m doing.

The thought jolts through me like a lightning strike. Now, more than ever, it is absolutely critical that I hold him to his promise. As much as I’d wanted to save Harry before, that feeling has only increased tenfold since finding him, since holding him again in my arms. I must see this through. I must stay focused on this one goal.

Battling my every instinct and desire, I push myself up off the bed and away from Harry. But it’s as though we’re bound together by invisible cords because I cannot bear to stand up. I gaze down at his face for what feels like an eternity. He looks so peaceful and serene in his fairytale sleep, and I feel suddenly selfish for wanting to wake him, for wanting to drag him back to a world full of suffering and pain. If only I could lay myself down beside him. Only for a little while. I am just so tired. So very tired.

A tear falls on Harry’s cheek, and I brush it away with the pad of my thumb. I will cry no more. Not until I’ve done what needs to be done – whatever that may prove to be in the end. And then I will find him again, and he and I will not be separated. Not even in death.

I reach up and seize the ring hanging around my neck and snap its chain. Shaking, I find Harry’s hand and slip it on his finger, holding his knuckles to my lips for a long moment as I whisper the incantation against his skin. And then I move, quickly and decisively, to refasten his robes and pull the blankets over him once again.

Pulling away and standing up is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I pause, gazing down at his face, trying to imagine that we’re back at the Kensington flat during those six weeks we’d lived together, and I’m doing nothing more onerous or unusual than leaving for my office at the Academy. Tearing my eyes from him, I turn my attention to Nott.

“I will decide what to do with you later,” I say. “In the meantime, don’t go anywhere.” I smirk at him, and his eyes register nothing but undiluted hatred.

“Oh, believe me,” I say. “The feeling is one hundred percent mutual.” I slip his wand into my pocket beside Voldemort’s mirror and bend down to kiss Harry one last time.

“I’ll be back soon, love,” I whisper. “Sleep on. And do not dream of me.”

 

I reseal the cellar door behind me and wrap my cloak tightly against the swirling blowing snow. It’s deeper than my knees now, and I struggle to wade through it, throwing all my weight into the effort. Around me, the neighbours’ windows have all gone dark, either because it’s very late or because they’ve lost the power to run their Muggle lights. I feel the press of night around me and sense in some part of my mind the countless miles of forest that stretch away in every direction from this tiny human habitation, as though the city itself – with its snow-packed streets and crumbling grandeur – were a dying star stubbornly pulsing out light into a primordial darkness.

At last I find the kitchen door and push it open. All is quiet, and the copper pots gleam dully in the light of my wand. So different from just hours before, when Alyosha had met me here and taken my hand to lead me up to the dining room. I follow the path we’d taken, down long corridors, past sleeping portraits. The house is eerily silent.

I climb the stairs slowly, breathing deeply with each step in an effort to calm myself and empty my mind. As much as having to leave him for Mefodiy’s bed broke my heart, I take comfort and strength from knowing that Harry is here, under this very roof. I inhale deeply, remembering the dream I’d had the night after I learned he was missing and presumed dead. My heart had whispered to me that I was not alone, and that, in fact, I never had been. I’d only been in a kind of stasis – much as Harry is now – waiting for him to wake me. To claim me. My fingers slip between the fasteners on my robes and trace the mirror’s ornate bronze frame through the cloth of my pocket. I know what I must do. I take a final deep breath and knock on Mefodiy’s bedroom door.

“Come in,” he calls.

I enter the room, tilting my head to the side to avoid striking it on the heavy beams in the steeply slanting ceiling, and find him sitting on his bed, his robes open and his shirt unbuttoned. 

“Ah,” he says, smiling. “I was wondering where you had gone.” His eyes sparkle with mirth when he notices the cloak over my arm. “Fine night for a stroll in the gardens.”

I make my way to the plain wardrobe at the far end of the room and hang my cloak from one of the rough-hewn hooks. I cast a quick drying spell before turning to him and holding my wand out on my open palm.

“Would you like this back?”

He gazes at my outstretched hand for a long moment, obviously assessing the pros and cons of the situation, before raising his eyes to my face.

“Do not mistake me for a fool, Draco,” he says evenly but without malice or challenge. “I know you are capable of wandless magic.”

I nod.

“Yes, I am, but nothing on parity with you or Harry.”

He looks at me appraisingly.

“You underestimate yourself,” he says. “Do not presume that I make the same mistake.”

Thinking of what lies in my pocket, I laugh aloud.

“All right,” I reply. “It’s a deal.”

He looks at me for another long moment before breaking into a wide grin.

“Always the bargainer,” he says.

His grin falls away as quickly as it had emerged, and his eyes drink me in, tracing every inch of my body. His long legs are stretched out before him, ankles crossed, but as his gaze lingers at my mid-section, he puts his feet on the floor and spreads his thighs, making room for his obvious erection.

“Please,” he says roughly. “Take off your robes.”

I raise my hands and slowly release the top-most fastener.

“Is Alyosha all right?” I ask.

“For now,” he says, raising his eyes, reluctantly, to mine. “But his condition has yet to stabilise. He is far sicker than his sisters. It is a miracle that he has lived as long as he has.”

“The Muggles have a cure for his condition,” I say, continuing to slowly unfasten my robes. “It is quite simple actually . . .”

His expression darkens.

“Surely you of all people do not believe that a Muggle is capable of curing a wizard. They could stop the bleeding perhaps, but not the slow steady leeching of his magic. You do not know Alyosha like I do. He is capable of becoming a powerful wizard – a very powerful wizard, indeed. And when I finally cure him, I will make sure he inherits that birthright. I will teach him myself – everything I’ve learned. All of the knowledge and experience that I have acquired will become his. As though he were . . .”

“. . .the heir of your own loins,” I say.

His eyes narrow, and suddenly I realise that what I have just said is not merely a metaphor.

“No wonder they call you “father,’” I say, musingly. “But I thought you told me that you had never made love to . . .”

He rises from the foot of the bed and crosses the room with sudden unnerving decisiveness. It takes all my courage and discipline not to flinch. But at the same time that I stand my ground, I also strive to keep my expression open and non-threatening and my mind a clean blank slate. He seizes my shoulders.

“Be careful,” he hisses. “You are treading on thin ice.”

He leans forward and kisses me fiercely.

“I want to fuck your living body, not your cooling corpse.”

I staunch a shudder.

“And then what?” I say against his mouth. “Will you give Harry back to me?”

“Well, you will just have to fuck me and see, I suppose.”

His expression is still baneful when he pulls back to look at me, but I see, too, that his eyes have darkened with renewed lust. I encircle his waist with my arms and pull his body close against mine. Beneath his heavy robes, he is almost impossibly hard, and I find myself wondering if he’d been touching himself before I came in, imagining the head of his cock breaching my arse, tighter than any cunt could ever be. I open my mouth wider and feel his tongue find mine, and when it does, his cock throbs several times in quick succession. I can taste his need, his hunger. I press my groin against his, encouraging the faint shallow thrusting of his hips. He kisses me urgently, releasing my shoulders and moving his hands to my head, holding me steady as his tongue explores my mouth. Through it all, my mind remains clear and my thinking steady. Vaguely, I feel the warm trickle of arousal, like sunlight filtering through trees, but I am not hard. And he is not going to get me there again tonight. Not after all that he has said to me. Not after I’ve held Harry in my arms. Not after he’s revealed himself as the Lucius to Alyosha’s Draco . . .

I feel a sudden surge of blind rage and loathing at the thought and pull back from his kiss, gasping for breath. In his ardour and his arrogance, he takes my breathlessness as a sign that my desire has once again made me his slave. But I am not foolish enough to believe I can continue this charade for long.

“These robes are special to me,” I say before he can lean in for another kiss. “Do you mind if I hang them in your wardrobe?”

He furrows his brow.

“You did not seem concerned about them earlier.”

I shrug.

“It will take me just a second.”

“Very well,” he says.

I turn away from him and finish unfastening my robes. Behind me I hear the creak of floorboards as he walks and the metallic clink of a belt being unbuckled. When at last my robes are open, I reach inside them and pull Voldemort’s mirror from my pocket. My heart is pounding hard in my chest and my breathing is so shallow, that I feel my fingertips start to go numb. I inhale deeply and raise the mirror level with my face and angle it so that were I able to see a reflection in it, I would see Mefodiy sitting on the edge of his narrow bed. As quietly as I can, I whisper the revealing spell.

“What is that?” he cries, leaping to his feet, and in the very same instant, I see his reflection in the dark glass, but only his face, as though it were surfacing from beneath fathoms of dark water.

He raises his hand and shouts something in Russian, but the word has already left my lips.

“ _Imperio_!”

My whole body braces for the impact of whatever spell or curse he may have thrown at me, but nothing happens. My own curse must have interrupted his. Realising that I’m squeezing my eyes shut, I open them and turn around to face him.

There is no way on earth that an unaided _Imperius_ cast against a wizard this powerful could have wrought what I see before me, and through the giddiness left in the wake of receding adrenaline, I find myself thanking Voldemort. If only the twisted fuck could know that one of his beloved artefacts had been used to save the life of Harry Potter. I almost laugh aloud at the thought. The mirror is powerful – more powerful than even I, the foremost expert on its creation and possible use, had imagined. The effect of any spell I cast with this mirror won’t be doubled. It’ll be increased tenfold. Wait until I publish _these_ results in the _International Journal of Maleficial Magick_ , I think, still feeling addled and lightheaded and trying hard to ignore the part of my brain that is whispering to me, over and over, like an incantation: _At last. At long last_.

I start with something easy.

“Sit,” I say.

And Mefodiy sits, like a dog, his magical aura still pulsing like a force of nature, though now it is untapped and as unchannelled as the ocean. Utterly useless to him. He’s so deep under the curse, that I cannot even sense his independent will. I cross the room until I’m standing before him. He gazes up at me. Although his expression is not as worshipful as a man I’ve spent the evening flogging into submission, it is nonetheless obedient.

“Tell me,” I say. “What did you do to Harry Potter?”

He answers without pause or hesitation.

“I gave him a choice.”

“Meaning?”

“He discovered me just as I was about to subject his comrade to a ritual. He attacked me. I returned his attack. I had three of my pupils with me, and he was outnumbered. At last, I was able to stun him. I told him I needed a wizard, and I would take either his friend or some other foreigner. He offered himself.”

My breath catches in my chest when I hear his words. Swallowing hard, I reach blindly for the wall to steady myself. Had it really been so simple? So easy? Had Harry considered nothing and no one but that bumbling fool Evans? Had he not considered what his loss would do to the squad? To wizarding Britain? To _me?_ I drag a shaking hand through my hair, suddenly _furious_.

“But you didn’t take him right then,” I say, recalling myself to the task before me. “Why not?”

“He begged me for time. For time to say good-bye, he told me. I knew that he was not telling me the whole truth. I knew that he wanted time to try to break the spell I would place on him to monitor him and ensure he came back. But I planned to use an ancient Siberian spell, and I doubted he would manage to discover its properties and origins before I summoned him to me. But although he lied to me, I was moved. I had never before encountered a man like him – a man so like myself, yet so different. I was intrigued. And then when I looked into his mind – into his heart – I saw the source of all that strength, that power. I saw a great and terrible love, and it touched me. For he and I are brothers in that respect.”

I snort with sudden laughter and turn away.

“Yes, a great love,” I say viciously. “A love so great he was willing to throw it away with his life, like so much rubbish. . . .”

“He fought me hard.”

I wheel around to face Mefodiy again and seize his chin, raising his eyes to meet mine.

“I do not need you to advocate for him,” I snarl. “You are to answer my questions and shut up. Nothing more.”

“Yes,” he says, and I find that I cannot help myself.

“Yes, what?” I growl.

“Yes sir,” he says.

“Not sir, master,” I reply. “Say it!”

“Yes master,” he answers doggedly. It is not nearly as satisfying as I might have imagined it to be, and I wonder fleetingly if this is how my father had felt when he looked into my eyes . . .

“Why did you need him?” I ask. “Why did you need a living wizard for your ritual, or whatever it is?”

“To save Alyosha and the girls,” he says.

I freeze, feeling my eyes widen with curiosity.

“How?”

“There is an age-old magical tradition in Siberia. There is no direct translation in English, but I suppose the closest would be ‘house magick.’ The foundation of a home is sacred, powerful. A wizard can accomplish much by cursing or casting protective spells on beams and stones and mortar. Certain magical artefacts can be embedded in walls and floors. A powerful wizard can use these things to influence whatever occurs in the rooms above, even from great distances. This is how I gave my Alix Olga despite the weak seed of her husband.”

He spits out the last word as though it were a piece of rancid meat. I smile and shake my head.

“So, now the careful mask comes off. If only Nikolai knew that he is a cuckold, and his family’s vaunted ‘ _starets_ ’ is, at best an adulterer, and at worst a rapist – and apparently a murderer to boot.”

Amazingly, his eyes flash, and I feel his will trying to exert itself like a roll of distant thunder on a lazy summer afternoon.

“Ah, now _that_ hurts, doesn’t it?” I say, throwing his words from earlier back in his face.

“I am not a rapist,” he grinds out. “I have never so much as touched her with anything but love and the deepest respect. She gave her heart to that pathetic man because he was her cousin, because they are of the same standing and background. She didn’t even _look_ at me that summer I spent as a servant at her family’s Yaroslavl estate . . .”

I roll my eyes.

“Please. Spare me the clichéd romantic details.”

I note the sarcastic drawl in my voice. If only Nott could hear me now, all his assumptions would be confirmed.

“The beautiful and haughty lady and the dark brooding stable boy,” I say, mockingly. “How quaint. How utterly fucking predictable. Is that why you wanted so badly to fuck me? You wanted the taste of aristocratic arse you’d been denied at eighteen?”

I feel the blind rage return and wash over me, and before I even realise what I’m about to do, I strike him hard in the face, splitting his lip. I hadn’t held back, and I know I’ve done real damage. He simply watches me, and suddenly my violent rage is supplanted by an equally violent self-loathing. Hadn’t I disciplined myself over the years? Hadn’t I learned how _not_ to harm a man under my control and completely vulnerable? Hadn’t I proven to myself that I am Draco – _not_ Lucius – Malfoy?

He raises his hand to his mouth, wincing when it finds his jaw. Clearly, I have broken it. Sick at my own loss of control, I repair it with a quick bone-knitting spell. He’ll be able to talk, but it won’t lessen the pain. Or the humiliation. Those will stay with him long after I remove the _Imperius_. I know this from experience.

When he can speak again, he answers me with a simple “No.” But so much has transpired in my mind since I’d asked him, I no longer remember the question.

“No, what?”

“No, that is not why I wanted to fuck you.”

I stare at him.

“I wanted to know what it felt like,” he continues in the same unnervingly emotionless tone. “To be loved like that.”

I stare at him for another long moment before turning and walking to the far end of the room. I place my hands and then my forehead against the wall and close my eyes, willing the nausea to subside.

“It’s not that easy,” I say to the rough cool plaster.

I take several deep calming breaths. At last I turn to face him again.

“You cannot take love,” I tell him fiercely. “You cannot simply demand it as your due. It is something you must _earn_ with your fucking blood, sweat and tears!”

I am aware that I no longer know to whom I am addressing my words. Having not been asked a question, he does not respond. I will myself to relax.

“If I had let you fuck me tonight, would you have given Harry back to me?”

“No,” he says.

I can feel myself staring again, struck momentarily speechless.

“ _No?_ ” I repeat, my incredulity plainly evident in my voice.

“I was going to,” he says, “but then I saw my little boy bleeding in his mother’s arms. He had found one of the shards from the wine glass you broke . . .”

“ _Silencio!_ ”

I realise after I’ve said it that, under the circumstances, a simple “shut up” would have sufficed. But his words had recalled to me the wordless plea in that terrified little face when Alyosha had lost his tooth on the train. And to think he’d bled tonight because of something I’d done, no matter how inadvertently . . . I feel my throat close painfully, and I swallow hard in an effort to open it.

“ _Finite Incantatem_ ,” I say when I can speak again. He watches me patiently as I begin to pace before him.

“So,” I say at last. “You were going to fuck me - literally _and_ figuratively.” My bark of sarcastic laughter makes him flinch in a vaguely satisfying way. “Then what?”

“I was going to let you join your love,” he says. “If I could not give him back to you, then the least I could do was to give you to him.”

I stop pacing and look at him.

“Ah, so Harry and I would sleep in each other’s arms in that cosy bed down in the cellar . . .”

His face is suddenly suffused with frank and candid surprise. I chuckle.

“Oh, you hadn’t figured out that I had found him? I was sure that was what you were smirking about when you saw me come in with my cloak . . .”

He shakes his head.

“. . . surely you can’t believe that I was really wandering around in the garden in the middle of a blizzard?”

“I thought you were calling for your friends,” he says. 

I raise my eyebrows.

“So, you believe I’m acting with the assistance of the other English wizards here in Irkutsk?”

He frowns, clearly confused.

“Of course,” he says. “Why would it be otherwise?”

I surprise the both of us with another loud bark of laughter.

“Oh, Mefodiy,” I chuckle mirthlessly. “You have no idea . . .”

But his words have awakened a realisation in me. Although I’m not privy to the details, I know that the squad has a sophisticated and foolproof means of remotely monitoring each member’s physical whereabouts and condition. Chances are they’d soon discover that Theo was in trouble, and they’d know exactly where to find him . . .

I feel a surge of panic. If they find Nott and un-Petrify him, he’ll tell them what I’d done. As well as who knew what else? If Nott knows that Mefodiy is here, in this house, with me, might not he assume . . . ?

“What you did do to Harry,” I say urgently, dropping to my knees before him. “Whatever it was, it erased his vital signs.”

He does not respond.

“Shit,” I hiss. In my rising panic, I’d forgotten that everything I say must be put to him in the form of a question, or he will not respond.

“The sleeping spell, or whatever it is, that you put Harry under. It made him untrackable. Can you do that to another wizard? Or can you tell me how to do it? . . . Hurry, you must tell me quickly!”

“It is not a simple thing,” he says. “It is not a separate spell. It is part of the healing ritual . . .”

Suddenly, as though someone has just shouted _Lumos_ in a pitch-dark room, it occurs to me. I seize his shoulders and shake him in my urgency as though he were a recalcitrant child.

“This ritual,” I hiss fiercely. “What does it do, precisely?”

“It weakens the vessel that is a wizard’s body so that his innate power can be tapped. Much like a tree of its sap, except it can be directed to flow into the body of another person, to increase the other person’s strength and power.”

Even in my urgency and impatience, I hear myself gasp at the sheer and simple _brilliance_ of what he’s telling me.

“How long have you known this?” I ask.

“Many years,” he replies. “But it has taken much trial and error. The first wizards I used died very quickly . . .”

I shudder at his casual description. As though sapping a wizard of his life and magic involved nothing more than squeezing a lemon of its juice.

“ . . . but I soon learned that they lasted longer if I put them in a kind of sleep. I tested this theory for many months before I dared to try it on Olga. But before her, I cured many of Siberia’s wizarding folk. Relieved much suffering . . .”

“Oh, spare me!” I shout. “The noble fucking healer, that’s you, all right. What about the wizards you killed or rendered Squibs? Did they have no right to be free of suffering, as you say?”

“It pained me deeply,” he says, and his hand lifts to clutch at his chest through his shirt, as though he could reach his heart and staunch the bleeding from a hidden wound. “So many fine wizards. But no one cares for us here. The Americans, the Europeans, even the wizards of western Russia, of Moscow and St. Petersburg. They all feel sorry for our children. But they do not really care . . .”

“There are many talented healers in Britain, alone,” I say. “Surely . . .”

His eyes flash alarmingly, and I reach for the mirror again.

“I was not going to sit and wait for some foreign wizard to care while the children – _my and Alix’s_ children – slowly bled to death or faded away!”

I glare at him.

“Do you really believe – in your heart of hearts, Mefodiy – that that sentiment makes you any less of a monster?”

“How can you say that?” he gasps. “How can _you_ of all people say that? I looked into Alix’s heart, and I saw how you held our little boy in your arms. How you rocked him, and whispered to him, and used your own shirt to wipe the sweat from his face!”

He suddenly crumbles before me and drops to his knees, practically in my lap, his face in his hands.

“Those wizards . . . those men had had full lives already,” he continued between ragged breaths. “The wizard your Harry bargained for was a father of grown sons and daughters. His life was half over. His desire for his wife was cool and faded. His pleasure in his work muted and unanimated. His friendships shallow. His heart sad. I offered him a chance to save himself. To sacrifice himself for a greater good, for the sake of an innocent child! He should have got down on his knees and _thanked_ me for the opportunity . . .”

“But . . . but . . . _Harry_ ,” I murmur against his hair, and suddenly I realise that I’ve taken him in my arms and am rocking him gently in an unconscious effort to soothe him, much as I’d done with his son . . .

“I wept for him,” he says into my neck. “He did not want to die. He showed me you – your face, your eyes – the way you looked at him when you thought he was not watching. He showed me a bed with white sheets and a window open to a spring breeze and the two of you sleeping in each other’s arms, grey-haired and content. He showed me your hands trembling as they reached out to touch his stomach, your mouth waiting for his kiss . . .”

“Enough,” I rasp.

He falls silent, save for the uneven hitching of his breath.

“But yet you took him anyway,” I say at last, my voice little more than a whisper. “And you were going to refuse, despite our . . . deal, to give him back to me?”

“He is very powerful,” Mefodiy sighs, relaxing into my embrace as though from exhaustion. “It would take years to drain him of his strength. I knew that if I took him, that I would not need to take another. You think me a monster, but I do not relish killing my kind,” he says. “It broke my heart every time, and at night they still come to me in dreams . . .”

“But you _were_ going to give me Harry?” I insist. Suddenly, it is imperative that I know the answer to that question. I had _felt_ something when he touched me in the parlour. Despite my wishful thinking, I cannot bear to believe that I’d imagined it. That it was nothing but a ruse. A lie.

“Yes,” he says. “I was.”

I release the breath I hadn’t even realised I was holding.

“But you changed your mind.”

He doesn’t respond, so I repeat myself, this time in the form of a question.

“But you changed your mind?”

“When I went to Aly. When I saw him in Alix’s arms. I knew where my loyalties must remain – at all costs. But although I knew you would be angry and probably try to kill me – even with my seed still warm in your body – I did not want to see you dead. You are not like the others,” he says. “Not even your Harry. Because unlike them, you have not yet lived. And I see in your heart that you are still a little boy. Much like my Aly . . .”

“Quiet,” I say warningly. “Do not speak another word.”

Utterly obedient, he falls silent in my arms.

My heart is thudding painfully in my chest, and I twine my fingers in his dark hair, trying desperately to pretend he’s Harry. I feel balanced on the edge of a deep abyss, and I’m certain that if I pause to look into it, that I will fall. Or jump. But there is no time for such thoughts, I admonish myself. The squad could be on its way at this very moment . . .

“You will do as I say,” I whisper against his ear. “You will release Harry from the spell. Now. Tonight.”

He groans as though he is in agony, and I feel his body go rigid in my arms as he tries to fight off my _Imperius_. Despite finding it unnerving that he can sense the boundaries of his own will through the curse, I am nonetheless impressed by his raw power and strength.

“It will kill them,” he rasps.

“No it _won’t_ ,” I say fiercely. “I promise you I won’t let that happen. I will take them back to London with me. I am wealthy. Far wealthier than Nikolai and Alexandra. I swear to you I will spend every Galleon I possess on finding a cure for them. I will not _rest_ until I do. Their treatment will be under my direct supervision, and Alexandra can stay with them at the Manor, and Nikolai, too, though from what you’ve told me tonight, I doubt you care about him one way or the other . . .” 

I’m babbling. I know I am. But I can’t help it. His response to my request that he set Harry free was not an “I cannot.” And although he has not said as much, I now know for sure that it is possible. I’m so close. So _close_ to hearing Harry’s voice again . . .

“No, you do not understand!” he cries, startling me with the fear and desperation in his voice. “Ending the spell will kill them within the space of an hour!”

I push him away from me, equally frustrated and confused, and he falls back against the bed.

“How then, pray tell, were you going to give Harry back to me if I slept with you?”

“I was going to find another wizard to take his place,” he answers. “If I put another wizard under the spell, I could remove it from Harry without harming the children.”

“And how the hell were you going to do that tonight? You were just going to snap your fingers and another wizard was going to simply appear to take Harry’s place?”

I pause for a moment. “Or, no, perhaps you already had someone in mind . . . Nikolai perhaps?”

His eyes flash again.

“No,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. “No, not _him_. Though I have often dreamed of it. The perfect revenge . . .”

He sits up and straightens his robes, and a small part of me pauses to admire his simple innate dignity. 

“No, I will not hurt him. Mainly because he is too weak to sustain the healing for long – not even a month, perhaps. But also . . .”

He pauses again, sighing deeply. Resignedly. “Alix loves him,” he says at last. “She always has. Their love may not be deep, but it is pure and innocent. They were children together. He has never spoken a word in anger to her. Believe me, I know. I used to pray that he would, so that I could feel justified in stealing her away from him. But he never has.”

“Surely, he was angry when she became pregnant with your children?”

He smiles at me ruefully.

“He does not know,” he says. “ _Neither_ of them know. I had developed a reputation in Siberia as a healer. They came to me when they began to fear that they were barren. I could not believe that I had found her again, although she did not know me. My Alix. Her heart was breaking for lack of a child. I knew immediately that it could not be helped. That his seed was weak. But I could not bear to see her suffer. I came to live with them here for several months. And every night I spilled my seed into the dirt of the cellars, thinking of her face . . .”

“All right, enough detail,” I say, thinking of Harry down in those same cellars and not wanting Mefodiy’s semen, no matter how imaginary, anywhere near him. “So, you weren’t going to substitute Nikolai. Who else then? Me, perhaps?”

He shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I told you already. I looked into your heart and did not want to see you dead.”

“Then _who?_ ” I ask, starting to feel exasperated and distinctly panicky again.

“I did not know,” he says, sounding equally frustrated. “I had not planned this! I had not expected to walk into the dining room this evening to find you sitting there. I do not know. I thought I could convince you to wait a few days, and in the meantime, I would find another wizard. One of your Harry’s friends perhaps . . .”

All of a sudden, it occurs to me. The solution to this apparently impossible situation. And I actually laugh aloud and seize his shoulders again. He stares at me, confused.

“Of course!” I cry. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of it sooner? This will solve _both_ my and your problems.”

I’m so relieved that I pull him into a kind of congratulatory embrace.

“I have just the wizard for you,” I tell him. “And he’s already _exactly_ where you want him.”

 

For the first time in more than a week, Neville was soundly and dreamlessly asleep without the aid of a potion. It became abundantly clear to him, however, when he heard the frantic pounding on his bedroom door, that he would not be able to remain in this blissful state until morning.

“What is it?” he called out drowsily as he fumbled, searching for his wand on his cluttered nightstand.

“It’s Theo!” cried Elizabeth. “He’s been hexed and perhaps otherwise wounded. His breathing is laboured.”

“Neville, I’m going now,” called Luna, and just at the same moment, his hand made contact with the wood of his wand.

“ _Lumos_!” he said and then, “don’t even _think_ about it, Lovegood!”

He clambered out of bed and shed his pyjamas, while reaching for the discarded clothes he’d thrown over the back of a chair the evening before. He was still tugging his jumper over his head, when he opened the door and nearly collided with the women on the other side. When at last he was dressed and the hair brushed out of his eyes, he peered worriedly at them. Luna had obviously been crying. Her nose and eyes were red against her pale skin.

“All right,” he said. “Talk.”

“His flame flickered,” said Luna. “That’s how I knew something was wrong. I woke Elizabeth, and together we figured out that it must be a hex, probably _Petrificus_ , I think. He’s in one of the houses we walked past yesterday evening . . .”

She started wringing her hands, twisting them helplessly in her too-long sleeves.

“It’s all my fault,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I was angry and let him walk away by himself . . .”

“Blast,” said Neville under his breath. Not again. He’d had days of listening to Theo agonise over Harry’s death. All the _what if_ s and _if only_ s. Neville knew from experience that the only thing worse than losing a squad member was believing it was your fault . . .

“Luna,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look at his face. “This is _not_ your doing. And talking this way doesn’t help us. Now, I want you to take a deep breath and try to shake this off. You’re our cool head,” he said more gently. “Can’t have you cracking up on us. Okay?”

She nodded and took a deep shuddering breath. Neville let go of her shoulders and turned to Elizabeth.

“Right,” he said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Lizzie, you’re coming with me right now. Luna, you’re going to wake Fairbanks, Krum, Watson and Higglebee . . .”

He held up his hand when he saw her open her mouth. “Uh uh, I am your commanding officer. Do not argue with me. I want you to fill them in on the details and tell them that Elizabeth and I have started out already. I want one of you to stay behind in the flat in case this is a diversion, and one person to go to the warehouses by the river for the same reason. The remaining three should prepare for a possible confrontation with Mefodiy and follow Lizzie and me. I recommend Viktor. He’s got more patience than I know you’ll have, Luna,” he said with a rueful wink.

Luna nodded with a whispered, “Thank you, Neville,” and left quickly to wake the others.

“Come on,” Neville said under his breath to Elizabeth. “If this is a repeat of what happened to Ed and Harry, we don’t have any time to waste. We’ll travel light and let the others bring the heavier firepower. Meet me outside. I’m just going to get dressed. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Elizabeth grabbed her cloak and ran to the door, and Neville walked swiftly to the empty bedroom at the end of the hall. Harry’s old bedroom. He knelt before the small, sooty fireplace and took a deep breath.

“Hermione,” he called softly, blinking through the glowing embers in her hearth. He could see the dark wood floors of their favourite parlour, the legs of Hermione’s armchair, the one she’d retrieved from her parents when they’d moved from their house into a smaller flat after their retirement . . .

“Hermione!” he called, a little louder this time.

At last he heard footsteps and saw her sensible brown shoes and the hem of her robes as she made her way across the room towards the fireplace.

“Neville?” she said and then knelt on the floor. He smiled to see the dish towel over her arm and a spot of soap bubbles still on one of her wrists. He felt his throat close, and realised in a rush just how homesick he was. Just how much he missed her and their quiet evenings together . . .

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, his voice gruff. He coughed slightly before continuing. They followed a protocol for Floo-calls such as this, and rule number one was that no one was allowed to cry. Under any circumstance.

“You’re going after him, aren’t you,” she said.

Neville merely nodded.

“Theo’s in trouble. And I’m willing to wager it’s him.”

Hermione’s face was grim.

“So, this is one of _those_ calls.”

Neville nodded again.

“Yeah, ‘fraid so.”

They were silent for a long moment. Despite the fact that this happened every time, it was still uncomfortable, and it still made Neville want to scream “Sod it!” to the universe and Apparate home as quickly as possible.

“Be careful,” she said.

“You know I will,” he replied, the script worn and well-rehearsed.

“Well, I’ve got to . . .”

“Neville, wait!”

He paused, frowning at the unexpected burst of emotion he saw in her face.

“What is it?”

“There’s something you need to know,” she said quickly. “Something . . . _shit!_ ”

Neville’s frown deepened.

“What is it, Hermione?” he asked sternly.

“It’s Malfoy,” she said in a rush. “He’s there. He’s in Irkutsk . . .”

“He’s _what?!_ ”

“You heard me,” she snapped in her anxiety. “He’s there to find Harry. I don’t know if he has, or what he’s done, or what he still might do. But promise me – for _Harry’s_ sake – that you won’t let anything happen to him.”

Neville just shook his head.

“That idiot! What the heck was he thinking?”

“I think others, even more than Malfoy, owe a similar explanation,” Hermione replied darkly.

“What do you mean?” Neville asked, genuinely perplexed.

“I mean . . .”

Suddenly, there came the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs and voices calling his name.

“Look,” he said. “I have to go. We’ll talk about this later.”

Hermione’s eyes filled with tears.

“Hermione,” he groaned. “You’re breaking rule number one . . .”

“Right. Later,” she said, swallowing back a sob. “First Ron, then Harry. I can’t take losing you, too . . .”

“You’re _not_ going to lose me,” he said fiercely. “I promise.”

“Yeah,” she said dully. “That’s what all the boys say.”

And with a humourless smile she rose and walked from the room. Neville stayed in the fireplace until she disappeared from his line of sight. At last, he stood and brushed the ashes from the knees of his trousers. He felt hollow and sick, even worse than he usually did after one of these Floo-calls to his wife. He’d left England so soon after he’d told her about Harry, and they hadn’t had much of a chance to talk since. At least not at length. She was cracking under the stress. Heck, they _all_ were! But it rattled him profoundly to see Hermione that distraught. She had always been his strength. His courage. Even when they’d been in school together, though she hadn’t known it then . . .

Neville scrubbed his face with his palms. Perhaps tonight would be the end, and they could all go home. Hopefully, alive and in one piece. He sighed and grabbed his cloak.

Elizabeth was waiting for him on the sidewalk. The snow was falling so thickly that her shoulders and hat were already covered. She stomped her feet and rubbed her arms.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” she said.

“Hermione said that Malfoy’s here,” Neville said without preamble. To his surprise, Elizabeth merely nodded.

“That’s not entirely unexpected,” she said.

“It’s not?”

She laughed. “Not to me, it’s not. I didn’t go to school with him like you and Theo, so I don’t know what image you have in your head of him. And granted, I don’t know him all that well, but I can tell you I’ve never seen anyone so besotted in my life.”

“Why the hell didn’t he make contact with us?”

“Maybe because he thought he wouldn’t be welcome.”

“Or maybe because he’s got plans of his own . . . ,” Neville murmured, although it suddenly occurred to him that if Draco _did_ have plans of his own, then Hermione was evidently in on them.

“Anyhow,” he said. “Let’s go and find Theo. I looked at the map and have a general sense of where the address is. Are you ready to Apparate?”

“Whenever you are, sir,” Elizabeth said with all her customary fond teasing. Neville smiled at her.

“All right, then,” he said. “Off we go.”

 

 

I do not look at Nott.

“Who is he?” asks Mefodiy as he kneels and holds his lit wand above Nott’s face. “Ah. Another of the English wizards. One of Harry’s friends, yes?”

At the sound of Harry’s name, I glance at his still, sleeping form. He has turned on to his side since I’d last seen him, and his back is to us. Even though he is not aware of our presence, I am glad all the same.

“He works with Harry,” I say brusquely. “But I don’t think you’d call them friends. Nott hated Harry in school.”

I am ashamed of my own words. I know well that Harry is deeply fond of Nott, and I know, too, that my description of Nott as a schoolboy could just as easily apply to me.

“He is not as strong as your Harry, but he will do,” says Mefodiy, standing once again and moving towards the bed.

“What are you doing?” I cry.

He turns around and gazes at me, perplexed.

“Just checking to see how Harry is doing.”

“Please,” I say. “Please don’t touch him. If you must disturb him, tell me what to do, and I’ll do it myself.”

Mefodiy continues to gaze at me for another long moment, his face unreadable in the faint light, and I wonder whether the _Imperius_ is wearing thin. He’s been under it now for at least an hour.

“It is all right,” he says at last. “We will not disturb him.”

I exhale a sigh of relief. But I find that I can look at no one but Mefodiy. Not Nott, and not even the back of Harry’s sleeping head.

“Let’s hurry and get this over with,” I growl.

“It is a delicate procedure,” says Mefodiy. “I cannot simply wave my hand. You must understand that many lives hang in the balance. The childrens’. This man’s.” He gestures towards Nott. “Your Harry. And my Alix. If she were to lose one of the children . . .”

“Does she know?” I say, interrupting him. “Does she know about . . . this?” I wave my hand in the direction of the bed . . . and Harry . . . without turning to look at them.

“No,” he says. “Part of the agreement I have with her and Nikolai is that they will not make enquiries into my . . . methods. And that they will not come down here. These cellars are mine. I would know if they had been here.”

I snort sarcastically.

“Your dark little secret. Right under their feet.”

He surprises me by smiling an amused little smile.

“Exactly. But when you present parents with a cure for their child’s suffering, you find there is nothing that they will not offer you in return.”

Thinking suddenly of my own mother – and of Harry’s – I merely nod in reply.

“Do you need him in the bed?” I ask, tipping my chin in Nott’s general direction.

“No, I need him on something raised a bit higher off the floor. A table would be ideal.”

I glance around for something to Transfigure, but there is nothing large enough, unless you count the bed that Harry’s in . . .

“It would be easier to take him upstairs to one of the dining rooms,” Mefodiy says.

“Fine,” I say. “Take him with you. I’ll be up in a moment.”

The sudden desire to bury my face in Harry’s neck is overwhelming. I just feel so sick and so tired . . .

I turn abruptly when I hear Mefodiy dragging Nott’s petrified body across the rough floor.

“What are you _doing_?” I cry.

He stops and looks at me.

“Taking him upstairs as you ordered.”

“For Merlin’s sake, don’t _drag_ him,” I say, the nausea returning in a wave.

“What alternative do I have? You commanded me not to use magic . . .”

“Oh, very well,” I snap. If I didn’t feel as though time – and a precious opportunity – were slipping away with every second, I might have been amused by our change in circumstances. It’s quite funny after all, that one of the most powerful wizards I’ve ever encountered is incapable of a simple levitating charm without my permission.

“ _Evanesco_ ,” I say, picturing the dining room we’d been in earlier in my mind, and Nott vanishes without a sound.

“Let’s go,” I say curtly.

“No kiss for your Harry?”

I look at Mefodiy.

“Not yet,” I say. “Not until he’s awake and can know it’s me who is kissing him.”

But all the same, I cannot stop myself from going over to the bed and placing my hand on Harry’s head.

“It will be all right,” I whisper, so that only he might hear. “I promise.”

I turn back to Mefodiy and we make our way to the interior stairs that he’d shown me earlier. Part of me – the part that has already survived the next couple of hours – is glad that I won’t have to subject Harry to thigh-deep snow. When he wakes, he will likely be weak and hungry . . .

“What will he be like?” I ask. “What will Harry be like when we wake him?”

Mefodiy doesn’t turn when he answers me.

“He will be without magic,” he says flatly.

“What?” I cry. “You mean he’ll be a _Squib_?”

“It will take several days for his strength to return and even longer before he will be able to control his magic. But I will help him. I have successfully brought wizards out from under this spell and nursed them back to their full power . . .”

“How thoughtful of you,” I grumble.

“I will not utilize a spell whose consequences and effects I do not fully understand,” he replies rather haughtily.

“Spare me the sanctimony,” I say, and he falls silent.

We have ascended the narrow cement stairs, and he is leading me down long, endless halls, their portraits still sleeping in their frames. I wonder how long we have until dawn.

“Will you be able to do everything you need to do before the others wake?” I ask.

“I hope so,” he says. “The transition may not go smoothly for the children, and I would rather they be asleep for the duration.”

“Perhaps you should explain the ritual to me,” I say. “In case something goes wrong, I could help you . . .”

“It is too complicated,” he replies. “It has taken me years to work out every aspect of it. My pupils know parts of the process, but only I know how to perform it from beginning to end.”

“Great,” I say archly. “So, you’re training other Siberian wizards to become Dark Lords . . .”

“We are healers, not lords,” he says. “We do not seek power or wealth. Only the ability to relieve suffering.”

A thousand responses fly to the tip of my tongue, but this is neither the time nor the place to debate the ethics of the Dark Arts and their use. Especially with a wizard who likely does not share the same basic values. It’s hard enough to reach a consensus among Britain’s wizards . . .

“I am teaching others because if I die, someone must know either how to end the spell or to sustain it. If the donating wizard dies without being replaced, the children will die with him. They are tied together. Bound. The only way to release the wizard without my assistance is to kill the children. And surely you can understand why I do not find this a satisfactory situation. Especially with foreign wizards tracking me like a wolf for its pelt.”

He throws a dark glance over his shoulder, and I wonder again if I need to recast the _Imperius_. But when he turns away again, his words return to the forefront of my mind. Just as I suspected, Mefodiy is the only one who can release Harry from the spell, and if Mefodiy flees – or dies – in the meantime . . . ? I feel a shudder of dread course through me like ice water through my veins. The only way to save Harry’s life would be to kill five innocent children!

“How could you do that to them?” I ask, angrily. “They never asked for this . . .”

“We would do much for the ones we love,” he says coldly, without turning to look at me again. “You, of all people, should know that.”

_Yes. But . . ._ , I think, but then stop. He’s right, after all. If I’d ever believed in some hypothetical universe that there were boundaries I, myself, would not cross, the endless days since losing Harry have proven me wrong.

 

At last we arrive at the painted doors that lead to the dining room, and I experience a moment of vertigo when I think that we’d stood here only hours before, but under vastly different circumstances. He pushes open the doors, and we step into the grand, high-ceiling room with its four tall windows on two sides only the thinnest of barriers between us and the raging blizzard outside.

Nott is already laid out on one end of the vast table. Once again, I find that I cannot look at him. While it is true that we hate each other, I have never wanted to see him dead. Not necessarily out of any innate tender feelings for him, but more because I simply couldn’t be arsed to care enough. But now that it has come to this . . . I feel my gorge rise and swallow hard.

“I need you to lift the hex,” says Mefodiy. “He cannot be under anything stronger than a sleeping or binding spell, or the residual power will taint the ritual.”

“I . . . I think I’d prefer it if he were asleep,” I stammer, not caring if I sound weak in his ears.

“Very well,” says Mefodiy. “Just be sure that it is a deep sleep and be ready to stun him should be wake.”

I nod.

“I will also need his wand.”

I nod again and retrieve Nott’s wand from its place in my pocket beside Voldemort’s mirror. As though I’m in the middle of a dream, I cross the room, my footsteps slow and heavy. At last, I stand beside Nott and look down into his face. Nott stares back at me, his dark eyes full of impotent rage and fear.

“I am sorry,” I murmur. “But you see, I have no choice . . .”

As I watch, two tears slip from the corners of Nott’s eyes, and I feel a wave of guilt and regret far more dangerous and potentially lethal to my resolve than anything else could have been. I steel myself and take a deep breath.

“ _Finite Incantatem_ ,” I say, but before I can inhale to cast the binding spell, I hear a voice shout “ _Accio_ wand!” and before it even registers in my mind that the voice belongs to Nott, he’s already pressed the tip of his wand to my throat. 

“I think the word you were looking for is ‘ _Incarcerous_ ,’” he hisses in my ear, and I feel the invisible cords encircle my body from head to toe. He pushes me roughly, and I fall against one of the chairs. It and I go tumbling to the floor with a resounding crash. The sound seems to reverberate through the silent house in long echoing waves. I blink, trying to shake off the shock and disbelief at what has just happened. From somewhere above me I hear a growl of pain.

“You may have been sorry, Malfoy,” Nott gasps, pushing himself off the table with what looks like a great effort and crouching down on his haunches to peer into my face. “But I sure as hell won’t be.”

 

 

“Over here!”

Neville squinted in the blowing snow, and held his hand up to his brow to shield his eyes as though from a blinding sun. But even with the scant protection, he could see nothing more than a hunched form in the direction from which Elizabeth’s voice had emanated.

“There’s a stairway,” she called. “And Theo’s signature on the unlocking charm!”

Neville turned away from the window he’d been making his way towards. He could have sworn he’d seen movement beyond the dark glass, but then again, everything seemed to be moving in all this wind. It could very well have been nothing more than the reflection of tree branches or house elves setting a table for breakfast.

He forged his way through the unrelenting snow and tried not to notice that his fringe was becoming matted with ice where the snowflakes had melted on his brow and the water frozen again, turning his too-long hair into frosty chunks. At last, he neared Elizabeth’s side and found her half-submerged in a snow-filled stairwell, at the bottom of which was a heavy oak door.

“Is it open?” he asked.

“What?” called Elizabeth, even though she couldn’t be more than ten feet from him.

“I said, is it open?” he shouted into the wind.

“It’s been forced at least twice in the last few hours!” she called. “And only resealed. Not locked. I think I can open it with a simple _Alohomora_ . . .”

And just as she said the word, the door crashed open, and Elizabeth fell through into the dark maw of the stone doorway. Neville leapt down the stairs after her.

“Lizzie! Are you all right?” he called as loud as he dared, but in the next moment he nearly tripped over her where she lay convulsed in silent giggles on the floor.

“Shit,” she whispered, when at last her mirth was under control again. “If only Harry could have seen _that_ little piece of intrepid investigative work. He’d reassign me to paperwork along with Higglebee.”

Neville grinned and helped her to her feet.

“Well, it’s not as though Harry never made a mistake. Or three.”

Elizabeth brushed the dirt and snow from her cloak and waved her wand back and forth in the darkness for several seconds.

“No one is here now, but several people were in these cellars – or wherever we are – not all that long ago.”

“Theo, too?”

“Theo, too,” she replied. “In fact, I can still detect his footsteps. They went over here, along this wall . . .”

“What on _earth_ did the git think he was doing?” Neville hissed. “Breaking and entering a private home like this . . .”

Elizabeth waved her hand behind her back, signalling for him to keep his voice down.

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” she whispered. “Theo has never done anything _completely_ mental before. Not like Gwynn did that time. Or Hooper did more than once.”

“If he had a good reason, then why the heck didn’t he come back to the flat and tell it to the rest of us? He _knows_ I don’t condone freelancing of any kind. Perhaps Harry forgave it, but I won’t. And Theo knows it.”

“I hear you,” she said placatingly. “But let’s just focus on finding him, shall we? You can rip him a new one once we know he’s safe and unhurt. Hullo . . . what’s this?”

Elizabeth had stopped short, and Neville had to reach out a hand and brace it against her back to avoid a collision.

“ _Nox_ ,” he whispered instinctively.

“Neville, sweetheart,” said Elizabeth. “I can’t see in the dark.”

“Well, I didn’t see whatever it was you saw, and it didn’t seem prudent that we had our wands lit anyway. What was it?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I only caught a glimpse before you _Nox_ ed us. But from what I could tell, it looked like a bed.”

“Occupied or unoccupied?”

“I couldn’t say. There were lots of blankets and pillows, though.”

“Hold on a moment,” Neville said and then whispered an incantation.

“Wouldn’t we know . . .”

“Shush! I’m trying to listen!”

Elizabeth fell silent, and Neville focused all his attention into the pressing darkness.

“Nope. There’s no one down here,” he said at last.

“Does that mean we can have light again?”

“All right,” he said. “But let’s keep it dim.”

“Yes sir!” Elizabeth replied. “ _Lumos_.”

The faint blue light swelled around them, watery and insubstantial, but nonetheless sufficient to see the bed against the far wall.

“So, you found no vital signs, I take it,” whispered Elizabeth.

“No, and I double checked,” he replied.

They made their way forward slowly, and Neville was just on the verge of suggesting they leave the bed alone and continue their search for Theo when he heard Elizabeth gasp and saw her rush forward.

“Harry!” she cried. “Merlin’s balls, Neville, it’s Harry!”

 

 

I glare up at Nott’s face, fully and painfully aware that I cannot reprimand him for being an idiot this time – not when I’d been working to bring about his likely demise.

“So, Malfoy,” he wheezes. “Sleeping with the enemy. How very like you.”

“Nott, this isn’t what you think . . .”

He laughs, but he soon wraps his free arm, the one not holding his wand, around his ribs. The laugh turns into a wet sputtering cough.

“That sounds familiar,” he says and spits in my face. “And just as you were disinclined to listen to me, I am equally disinclined to listen to you.”

“Don’t be stupid, Nott,” I hiss. “People are in danger. _Harry_ is in danger . . .” Somewhere in the back of my mind, the panicked thought from earlier reasserts itself: if something were to happen to Mefodiy, there’d be no alternative than to . . .

I can taste copper on my lips and realise that his spit is more blood than saliva. Clearly, I _had_ broken a rib, and it’s a serious injury. If only Mefodiy would fucking cotton on to the fact that he need not have access to his magic to take care of Nott . . .

And just as the thought crosses my mind, I see a blur of movement behind Notts’ shoulder and hear Nott cry out in surprise and pain.

“I thought he was under your _Imperius_ , Malfoy,” he barks as he lands on his back beside me with Mefodiy’s hands at his throat. “Fuck!” he growls, blood trickling ominously from the corner of his mouth. “Order him to get off me!”

“And why would I do that again?” I ask, trying to writhe and twist my way out of my invisible bonds. “Perhaps if you . . .”

“ _Stup . . . !_ ”

But Nott’s voice is drowned beneath his cry of pain and a barrage of shouted Russian words, and suddenly I am free. Without even pausing to consider what has just happened, I seize my wand and scramble to my feet, dazed as much from the sudden flurry of movement in the darkened room as I am by having struck my head hard against the floor when I fell . . .

“ _Expell . . .!_ ”

“ _Avada Kedavra!_ ” Nott shouts, cutting me off, and suddenly, as though from a great distance, I watch in horror as the flash of green light strikes Nott’s mysterious attacker full in the chest . . .

Nikolai’s eyes widen in surprise and pain as the Killing Curse strikes him, propelling him backward with astonishing force into Alexandra where she stands, cowering fearfully behind him, her eyes clouded with hastily shaken-off sleep and dawning terror. Time slows to a crawl, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I realise how small she actually is, despite her formidable personality. Her body offers little resistance to her husband’s as the curse throws them both through one of the tall windows with a deafen crash of glass and wood and stone.

“ _ALIX!_ ”

I hear Mefodiy’s cry and feel the rush of air and sudden movement in the same instant as he seems to fly past me, running toward the broken window.

“ _Avada . . . !_ ”

Without thinking, I turn and seize Nott’s wand hand, twisting it viciously backwards. The curse dies on his lips as his face suddenly drains of colour. I feel the slender bones in his wrist snap like so many twigs. His wand slips from his nerveless fingers and falls with a clatter to the floor.

“ _Accio_ Nott’s wand!” I cry, and in an instant, my fingers close around the polished yew wood.

“ _Incarcerous!_ ” I shout, binding Nott with the same invisible bonds that had held me before.

“Nott, you stupid fuck!” I yell at him, shaking with adrenaline and fear and rage. “What have you done? That was an _innocent man_ you just killed!”

I realise suddenly that I’m wringing my hands, twisting my and Nott’s wand in trembling fingers. Everything – _everything_ – has gone completely wrong in the space of five minutes. And as soon as this thought crosses my mind, everything somehow manages to get even worse . . .

As my focus returns following my battle with Nott, I realise two things: first, Mefodiy is wailing like a man possessed on the other side of the broken window, and secondly, there is the sound of weeping and fearful whimpering coming from the doors. I wheel around and see the children staring from me to Nott to the window. Suddenly Anna rushes forward, her bare feet crunching on broken glass.

“Anna, no!” I shout at her, but she either doesn’t hear me, or has chosen to ignore my plea. I rush after her and grab her in my arms before she can fling herself through the jagged hole in the window. She struggles fiercely, sobbing “Mama! Papa!” into the wind and snow swirling into the dining room and dusting the floor like pristine sand, her feet leaving bloody footprints in her wake.

“Olga!” I cry. “Tatiana! Please, help me with your sister! I need to go to your parents!”

After what feels like forever, I feel the older girls relieve me of their struggling sobbing kicking sister. I glance behind me and see Maria and Alyosha tiptoeing forward.

“Stay _back!_ ” I yell at them. Suddenly the glass seems like it’s everywhere. “Stay back! Olga, please! Explain to them!”

Olga says something in Russian, and Alyosha shouts something back at her, but my attention is torn from the children when a powerful gust of wind blows the snow aside for a moment, and I see clearly the three adults outside.

I run forward and start kicking away the remaining shards of glass that stick out from the window frame like teeth in a crooked grin. Outside the snow gleams white in the darkness, and three figures – two prone and the other kneeling – stand out like shadows cast by moonlight. They huddle in an ever-widening pool, as though from somewhere high above them, a hunting owl were descending slowly, throwing his shadow on the ground. It takes me too long to realise what it is that I am seeing, and to understand that no one can survive for long such a great and sudden loss of blood . . .

With a muttered curse at my own stupidity, I cry “ _Evanesco!_ ”and the glass vanishes. I leap the four feet to the ground, sinking past my knees in drifting snow, and shout a warming charm in the direction of the people before me. In an instant, the snow lessens visibly around them. I run as quickly as I can to their side, my wand drawn and a blood-clotting charm already on my lips.

Mefodiy incoherent. Moaning in Russian and rocking Alexandra in his arms. I kneel beside them and take her wrist, but I know even before my fingers can find her pulse point that she is dead. Stricken with grief and remorse, I raise my face to his and see reflected there something I recognise all too well . . .

“She’s not dead,” I say fiercely. “She’s not dead.” I tear off my robes.

“ _Diffindo_ ,” I say, tearing the wool into ribbons with several slashes of my wand. “Here. Help me bind her wounds . . .”

“You lie to me,” he says tonelessly, clutching her to his chest, her long hair spilling on the snow beside him like her blood. Such a shame, I find part of myself thinking crazily. She should wear it loose more often . . .

“I know she is gone,” he says in the same dead voice. “Do not think that I cannot feel it.”

I grab his shoulders and shake him hard. His dark hair is plastered against his pale face. His eyes are wild and haunted and utterly mad.

“The children,” I say, pleading with him. “You cannot forget the children . . .” And _Harry_ , my brain screams at me, frantic with rapidly growing fear.

“How did you do this to me?” he grinds out through clenched and chattering teeth. It takes me several seconds to understand that he means the _Imperius_.

“That’s not important,” I say and feel his magic surge beneath my curse like a tsunami.

“That thing,” he rasps, his eyes flicking from my face to my ruined robes. “That _mirror_. That is what you used . . .”

I lunge forward, searching for my wand, which I’d cast aside in order to bind Alexandra’s unstaunchable wounds. And at the same moment, I see what it is that had caught his attention. The mirror’s dark glass winks up through the tattered shreds of my robes, like a betrayal. Our eyes lock, and we reach for it at the same time. As quick as I am, his hand nevertheless finds it first. I feel terror freeze my heart.

“You cannot use it,” I say, my voice quavering. “You cannot use magic against another wizard without my permission.”

He gazes at me, and for a fleeting moment, his eyes clear, and he is himself again.

“Who says I was going to use it against another wizard,” he says, and before his words can sink into my brain, he turns the mirror toward himself as though peering closely at his own reflection.

“Sweet Merlin!” I cry. “Mefodiy, _no_!”

But he has already said something soft and lilting in Russian. Like a lullaby. Like a stream of whispered endearments, and I don’t even have time to reach out and grab his shoulders before he slumps to the side and falls lifeless, his pale eyes staring sightlessly, into a sky swirling with snow.

I gaze at him in utter horror as the ramifications of his act take shape in my mind.

“You fucking selfish bastard,” I scream at his handsome expressionless face. “You _unbelievably_ fucking selfish bastard!”

 

 

“Harry! Harry, can you hear us?”

Neville found himself giving his friend’s shoulders a shake as though Harry were doing nothing more sinister than sleeping off a hangover.

“Come on, Harry. Give us a sign!”

He glanced up at Elizabeth where she knelt on the bed, on Harry’s other side.

“Any sign of injury?” he asked anxiously.

“None,” she murmured, her brow furrowed in concentration. “But even though I can feel his pulse and see his breathing, I still can’t pick up his vital signs. At least not magically . . .”

“Ed,” Neville muttered, suddenly putting two and two together. “This is exactly what Ed was like when Harry brought him back to the flat . . .”

Elizabeth looked up from her diagnostic work, her mouth pressed in a thin line.

“No wonder we can’t detect anything,” she said angrily. “Harry’s a Squib!”

“Don’t _say_ that!” Neville snapped, and then scrubbed his face with his hands. “Sod it all!” he sighed, exasperated. “I’m sorry.”

She smiled at him grimly.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not like I don’t understand completely. But do you know what, Neville?”

“What?”

“That’s the first time I think I’ve ever heard you swear.”

He looked at her, alarmed, and suddenly her face split in an impish grin.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I do believe ‘sod it all’ is a derivative of ‘fuck it all.’”

He felt himself blush at her teasing.

“Well, then I’m all the more sorry,” he mumbled.

She shook her head, bemused, and refocused her attention on Harry.

“What should we do?” she asked. “We still haven’t found Theo . . .”

“We need to get Harry out of here,” Neville said decisively. “We need to get him back to the flat. Maybe the others haven’t left yet, and we can fill them in on what we’ve learned and come back with the five of us to get Theo.”

Elizabeth frowned. “What if . . .?”

But before she could finish her thought, they heard a reverberating crash from somewhere above them. Instinctively, they doused their wands and assumed protective postures over Harry.

“What the hell was that?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Neville whispered. “Perhaps I should go and investigate . . .”

“Not alone,” she hissed.

“But we can’t just leave Harry here by himself,” he said urgently. “Maybe . . .”

But their conversation was interrupted again by something that sounded like footsteps on stairs and a struggle in the same general direction they’d heard the crash just a minute or two before.

“Shit! There is definitely something going on up there,” said Elizabeth. She whispered an incantation and sat still, listening for a long moment. “And Theo’s up there,” she said at last. “Neville, we _have_ to go. Harry will be all right. We’ll put a protective shield around him . . .”

There was another crash, and this time they could clearly detect raised voices. Several of them.

“Sounds like there’s a full-fledged battle going on,” Neville said. “Maybe the others have already . . .”

“Even if they’ve arrived, they’ll need our help,” said Elizabeth. “Come on!”

She crawled to the edge of the bed and stood up.

“ _Protego_ ,” she said, and suddenly Harry was surrounded in a faint shimmering light. Neville added his own shield to hers.

“There,” she said. “That should . . .”

But whether or not she finished her sentence, Neville would never know because at that very same instant, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He wheeled around to face the bed again. And in the same moment, Elizabeth must have seen something, too, because suddenly she was hastily removing their shields and calling Harry’s name.

“Harry!” Neville cried, his voice barely squeezing past the clenching in his chest. “You’re awake!”

And there it was again. The faintest fluttering of fingers. The twitch of an eyelid. Harry’s brow furrowing in creases. His breathing was no longer steady and even, but heavy and laboured as if he were fighting against some unseen force. Neville seized one of the restless hands in both of his.

“It’s all right, mate,” he said. “You’re all right. It’s me, Neville. And Elizabeth is here, too. You’re all right.”

Suddenly Harry’s eyes flew open as though something that had heretofore sealed them shut had suddenly let go. Neville and Elizabeth both gasped at what they saw there. Abject terror. And rage.

“ _Draco!_ ”

The word emerged from Harry’s lips as though torn from his lungs. His eyes blazed, helpless and furious.

“Draco’s not here, Harry,” Neville said worriedly. “It’s just me and Elizabeth.”

“He’s . . . here . . . I . . . _know_ . . . he is.”

Neville and Elizabeth caught each other’s eyes in alarm.

“Could he be right?” she hissed. “Could he . . . ?”

With a sudden unimaginable effort, Harry pushed himself up on his elbows. Neville and Elizabeth moved to settle him back down again, but he snarled at them like an injured animal.

“He’s . . . above us! I hear . . . his voice!”

Neville and Elizabeth froze, listening intently. At first, Neville could hear nothing but his own pulse thrumming in his ears, but at last he heard it – a choked male voice. And a child’s scream.

“Dear sweet Merlin!” cried Elizabeth. “What the _fuck_ is going on up there?”

Harry thrashed against their hands. With every minute that passed, he seemed to grow a little bit stronger.

“In the name of all you hold dear,” he cried, panting. “ _Let me go to him!_ ”

His fingers closed tightly around Neville’s wrist, and Neville had no doubt at all that had he had access to his full strength, he would have left bruises. He stared at Harry’s face, at the sweat beading on his brow, at his tortured expression, and suddenly, unexpectedly, all he could see was Hermione, and her words came back to him . . .

_Promise me – for Harry’s sake – that you won’t let anything happen to him._

He turned to Elizabeth, his mind made up at last.

“Come on,” he said. “Help me get him to his feet.”

 

Their trip through the cellars felt like an eternity. It pained Neville every step of the way to feel the effort it took Harry to make each small movement. He leaned heavily on their shoulders, gasping for breath, but every time Neville asked if he wanted to stop and rest for a minute, he frantically shook his head and urged them on.

At last they found the stairs and climbed them, staggering along beside Harry’s awkward steps, despite the weightlessness charm Elizabeth remembered to cast. All the while Harry’s eyes remained as focused as Muggle lasers, as though by sheer force of will he could melt the plaster and wood in the walls around them.

Once they reached the end of the first hall, it became clear from which direction the noise was coming. And it also became clear that Harry was right. Draco’s voice was unmistakable as he shouted Killing Curse after Killing Curse. Again and again and again. And in between each _Avada Kedavra_ , all they could hear was a child’s terrified wail.

“What the _hell?_ ” Elizabeth cried, her face ashen and her eyes shining with tears.

“Draco!” Harry called, but his voice seemed little more than a whisper in a whirling blizzard.

At last they found themselves at the doors of what, clearly, had once been a grand and beautiful dining room, but which now lay in ruin. Neville found himself trying to take in everything at once but feeling none of it sink in, as though each detail was a rain drop bouncing off a repelling charm. On their left was an open window, snow and wind tangling in the long velvet drapes. On the floor before them, bleeding from his mouth was a conscious, but clearly incapacitated Theo, and against the right-hand wall, across from the open window, like discarded but beautiful dolls in their archaic nightgowns, lay the lifeless bodies of four girls.

Neville wrenched his gaze from the still, pale faces to the only animate figures in the room – a young, flax-haired boy, his eyes wide with fear and confusion, was cowering against the far wall, between the two intact windows. And before him – his arm extended and his wand shaking so violently that each curse he hurled blasted plaster from the walls, showering dust like snow on his tiny intended target – was Draco Malfoy.

But before any single detail could begin to make sense, Neville became aware of three more figures as they suddenly materialised from beneath their Disillusionment charms and appeared in the two windows on Draco’s either side – Luna, Viktor and Katie, their wands drawn and pointed at the glass.

Neville would never be able to recall exactly what happened in the next thirty or so seconds. But he _knew_ that he heard Draco sob “ _Avada Kedavra_!” yet again. He _knew_ that both windows shattered in a cacophony of glass and masonry, and he _knew_ that someone – maybe even he, himself – called out “ _Finite Incantatem!_ ” so that Nott leapt to his feet and _Accioed_ his wand. What Neville did _not_ know – and actually hoped in his heart of hearts that he never would – was to whom the Killing Curse belonged that struck Draco with such force that he spun around completely before dropping to his knees.

And in that second – that _instant_ – before he fell, Draco caught sight of Harry, standing there in the doorway, and his eyes went wide. Neville hadn’t thought it possible to survive an _Avada Kedavra_ for longer than half a heartbeat, but there Draco had stayed, balanced on the edge of death, for an eternal handful of seconds.

“ _Harry_ ,” he sobbed, the desperation in his voice all but palpable. “Forgive me.” And as they watched, frozen in their tracks, Draco reached out – not, it had seemed, in an attempt to catch his inevitable fall, but rather to touch something treasured – something loved – one last time. And then his eyes lost their sight, and Neville’s attention was wrenched violently from Draco’s motionless body, to the still-living body between him and Elizabeth, which began to writhe with hoarse keening cries of “Draco! Draco! Draco! Draco!” As if a name called loud and long enough could bring a person back. As if it were that simple, that easy. 

As if love were ever enough.


	10. Chapter 10

Sometimes I watch him sleeping.

It’s easier that way. When he’s awake, I have to meet those eyes – clouded with betrayal, when they’re not lit up with directionless anger, that is. But sleeping, it’s easy to imagine he’s at peace. That nothing is out of place. I prefer it that way. 

Tonight I pull the chair away from the desk and position it by the bedside table. Usually, I just stand in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, but the last time I did that, he woke unexpectedly. His response to the featureless black cut-out, backlit by the hallway light, was to cry out and cower against the headboard, clutching his quilt to his chest. Even after he realised it was me, his face remained pale and wan. When I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for his hand, his fingers gripped mine like a lifeline. It broke my heart. What’s left of it, that is.

I sit down, feeling the chair give slightly under my weight. It’s meant for a child, not for a man who’ll be forty in four months. I lean back gingerly, testing its strength. For a second, I consider casting a quick fortifying charm, but I catch myself just in time before the wave of stunned disappointment can broadside me yet again. One of these days, I keep telling myself, the bone-deep sense of loss will go away. Until then, I just have to ride out the increasingly infrequent moments of disorientation. And rage.

I turn my attention once again to the sleeping face before me. We share much, he and I, though his sense of betrayal is undoubtably deeper than mine. I lean forward and brush the hair away from his face. He stirs and murmurs, and I freeze, my heart pounding, but he is deeply asleep. His eyes do not open.

Those terrible accusing eyes.

It’s been more than a year, and it’s spring again. Our second spring in this new world we live in. Yesterday, I’d noticed the first daffodils. They were that miniature variety that everyone seems to find so cute and novel these days. As if the miracle of having survived another winter weren’t novelty enough for them. From a distance, they hadn’t seemed real - more like splotches of yellow paint that had fallen somehow on the matted grass. Or maybe sweet wrappers, from a Flake bar or something. Hardly surprising, given that the snow had melted only a couple of weeks ago, revealing months worth of people’s carelessly discarded rubbish. But then I’d walked closer and seen that I’d been wrong. They were daffodils after all. Sunny and bright and undaunted.

If only people were half as resilient, I think bitterly. But then again, as harsh as ice and snow can be, you can’t take the destruction they wrought personally. There’s nothing that smacks of betrayal in a killing frost. And winter’s just a season. It comes and goes without remorse, without regret. I snort ruefully at my own thoughts. Ever the fucking poet, that’s me.

His hand is unfurled against his pillow, no longer clenched in the fist that it is when he falls asleep, as though he were going into battle. I lean forward again and wrap my fingers around his. He is beautiful. So like his father.

Someone touches the back on my neck, and I nearly leap from my seat.

“Don’t _do_ that,” I hiss.

I feel arms slip around me from behind, and from the comforting intimacy of the embrace - as much as the scent of oatmeal soap - I know it’s Hermione.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I would have said it was me, but I didn’t want to wake him. How was he tonight?”

I shrug in her arms.

“The same as always, I suppose.”

“He is getting better, believe it or not,” she says. “Especially when he’s well rested, I feel almost as though he doesn’t mind it here as much as he used to.”

“Hardly a ringing endorsement given all that you’ve done for him,” I say, scowling.

Hermione gives me a sharp, admonishing squeeze.

“You can hardly expect him to be grateful,” she says. “Not after . . . after everything that happened.”

I reach back and give her arm a placating pat.

“Well, it would seem gratitude’s in scarce supply all over these days. Guess we can only hang in there and hope the gratitude fairy pays us a visit.”

She laughs and straightens but only after kissing the top of my head.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she says. “You’ve had a hell of a lot to adjust to.”

I hurumph under my breath and rise from the tiny chair to stand beside her. She gestures towards it.

“I suppose we’ll have to get new furniture in here - or at least _Engorgio_ the pieces we have. He’s not going to stay small forever, after all.”

I turn from Hermione to the figure in the bed again. He’s scarcely visible beneath the pile of quilts and stuffed animals, but I know she’s right. Since the treatments began last spring, he’s put on a more than a stone and two inches already.

“I suppose he’s got some catching up to do,” I say. “He was small for his age to begin with . . .”

I pause to catch a yawn against the back of my hand.

“It’s late,” she says. “Go home.”

“I didn’t do the washing up from supper,” I say. “And after the night you and Neville had to put in, I’d hate for you to have to face a stack of dishes . . .”

Neither of us mention the fact that she and Neville can simply cast a few _Scourgifies_ , whereas I would have to break out liquid soap and sponges and towels . . .

“It’s all right,” she says. “We’ll take care of it. I’m just grateful you were willing to babysit - _again_. You’re the only one I trust. After that silly girl cast an _Impedimenta_ at him . . .” She shudders. “Besides. He likes you.”

I snort derisively.

“I hardly believe _that’s_ true.”

Hermione shrugs.

“True, he hasn’t said as much, but I can tell. I’m beginning to understand his little cues better and better all the time, and it hasn’t escaped my attention that his face lights up when I tell him you’re coming for a visit. But enough chit-chat. For Merlin’s sake, _go home_.”

I hear the plea in her voice and sigh resignedly.

“Yes, mum.”

“Don’t give me that shit, Harry James Potter.”

I laugh.

“Admit it, you’re having fun being a mother again, aren’t you?”

She smiles, and after a moment, she nods as well.

“It’s getting easier.”

We stand for a long moment in the quiet darkness, thinking our own companionable - but unvoiceable - thoughts. At last, she says, “Neville’s got a Portkey.”

“Er . . . I was, uhm, thinking I might take a taxi . . .”

“From here to Redlynch? Surely you haven’t forgotten what a ride _that_ long will cost you . . .” 

 

Her eyes narrow. 

“Unless you’re not planning on going to Wiltshire.”

I shift uncomfortably under her steady gaze.

“It’s late,” I say. “I was thinking of going to the flat . . .”

“Harry,” she says, cutting me off. “Why?”

We both know what she means, but I’m too tired to have this conversation.

“I hate waking him,” I mumble, unable to meet her eyes.

“Fuck you, Harry,” she says without rancour. “You know as well as I do that he won’t be asleep.”

I nod.

“You’re right,” I say, but she continues to glare at me. “No, I really mean it,” I say again, this time with more conviction. “You’re absolutely right.”

She gives me a quick hug.

“Go on, then,” she says. “Neville’s waiting for you. I’m just going to sit here for a few more minutes . . .”

I smile through the sudden tears that fill my eyes.

“You’re the best,” I whisper into her hair. “Call me if you need anything.”

She pulls back and smiles brightly, her signal that all has been returned to order in a chaotic universe.

“You know I will,” she says. “Good night, Harry.”

 

Neville and I make only slightly awkward small talk as we walk from the gates that open onto the lane down the long drive, our feet crunching nosily in the still, moonlit air. It was the closest Portkey destination we could establish, given the formidable and ancient wards, but I’ve grown not to mind the walk. It gives me time to put my head in order.

“I suppose Hermione told you we got permission from the Board to bring in that specialist from Vienna?” Neville asks.

“No, she didn’t,” I say. “But I’m not surprised. As if St. Mungo’s is going to say no to anything you ask of them these days.”

Neville snorts softly.

“Not with _that_ kind of money behind us.”

We walk in silence for several minutes. At last, we round a bend, and the Manor suddenly looms before us at the end of a long straightaway. The lamps are lit by the front door, but the only other light comes from a second floor window in the east wing. 

“Even so,” Neville says quietly, as though there hadn’t been a five minute break in the conversation. “It looks as though this Vienna healer’s treatment will only stop the bleeding. It won’t do anything for . . . for . . . well, you know.” He finishes lamely and turns his face away as though admiring the last of Narcissa’s winter roses.

“You mean it’ll do nothing for his Squibness,” I say evenly.

“Right,” says Neville. “Not that there’s anything wrong . . .”

I laugh, but it comes out sounding more harsh than amused, and I’m ashamed of the bitterness I cannot seem to keep in-check.

“Of course not,” I say.

Bobbin opens the door just as we arrive and bows so low that her nose nearly collides with the floor.

“Good evening, Master Harry and Mister Longbottom,” she squeaks. “Bobbin will take your coats . . .”

“Uh, no thanks,” says Neville quickly. “I should really be getting home. I’ll just use the Floo, if I may . . .”

He makes his way hurriedly towards the fireplace.

“You know, Neville,” I say. “You could just leave me at the gates when you Portkey me home like this. It’s not like I need an escort to my own front door.”

He turns to me, his face visibly lined with pain.

“Harry,” he says, his voice sad. “I’m sorry. You _know_ I am. It’s just that last time I stayed for tea, and he came downstairs . . .” He pauses and scrubs his face with his palms. “Look, _none_ of us needs that kind of thing right now.”

I nod, suddenly exhausted.

“I understand.”

He glances at me pleadingly.

“No, I mean it,” I tell him. “I really do understand.”

We look at each other, and for a fleeting instant, it’s like old times again, and we’re doing nothing more than parting for the night after a long day’s surveillance work. But the anxious set of his mouth and the tension in his eyes dispels that little fantasy as quickly as it arose.

“Thanks, Harry. And thank you for watching Alyosha tonight.”

I note that he dropped his voice to little more than a whisper when he said the boy’s name. I sigh.

“Good night, Neville.”

And without waiting to see the flash of light and the whoosh of embers, I turn and head for the stairs.

 

He is sitting with his back to the door when I enter, lounging in an armchair with his long legs stretched in front of him. But with a second glance, I notice the rigidity in his neck and shoulders. How long has he been there, staring sightlessly out on to the silvery lawns and the dark border of forest beyond? What is he looking for?

For what – or for whom – is he waiting?

I close the door behind me with a soft click.

“You’re back,” he says without turning, and I suddenly want to clear this enormous, comfortless room in five strides and seize him, shake him – _strike_ him even, if that would be what it took. Instead, I merely drape my coat over the back of the sofa by the fire.

“Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

He does not answer, but I see that somehow his shoulders and neck have managed to tense even more. I sit down heavily and pull off my boots, throwing them with a clatter against the grate. He jumps slightly at the sudden sound, and I feel the familiar sensation of sickness and sorrow twist its fist in my gut.

“I wouldn’t blame you,” he says at last, but so softly that I hardly hear him at all.

“You wouldn’t blame me for what?”

“If you didn’t come back.”

I lean back in the sofa and drag both my hands through my hair. The fire sounds loud in the ensuing silence.

“We’ve been over this a thousand times. How many times and in how many ways do you want me to say that I’m not leaving you?”

I hear him get slowly to his feet, as though it pains him to stand. To move at all.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says from somewhere behind me.

“Well, what did you mean, then?”

“I meant that I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t come back tonight. If you decided to go to a club.”

I drop my hands from my face and stare blankly at the fire for a long moment, trying to decide how best to respond.

“I’ve told you _that_ a thousand times as well,” I say coldly. “I’m not interested in fucking some nameless bloke.”

“He wouldn’t have to be nameless if you asked him to introduce himself . . .”

Feeling something give in my chest, I rise from the sofa and wheel around to face him.

“You know what I mean, Malfoy,” I snap, knowing that, under the circumstances, the use of his surname is crueler than any blow I could mete out.

His eyes flash for the briefest of seconds, but then, to my chagrin, he sits heavily on the edge of our perfectly-made bed and drops his face into his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles through his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

But I don’t want him to be sorry. In fact, I’m sick to death of him being sorry. I just want him to be Draco again, so that maybe – just maybe – I can remember how to be Harry.

“Com’ere,” I growl, leaning against the back of the sofa, and he comes. But before I can pull him to me or kiss his mouth, he cups his hand over my prick, and I feel my body respond instantly to his touch. I stare at him furiously as he caresses me to hardness.

“Draco,” I say, but he presses a finger to my lips. And then he is trailing kisses down my chest as he unbuttons my shirt, his mouth following in the wake of his fingers, nipping gently with flawless pressure and precision. I reach for him, longing to feel that fine soft hair, to feel the shape of his head in my hands. I _ache_ to touch him. I would give anything, trade every one of his expert ministrations, for the chance to lay him out naked on our bed and lower my body on to his.

But, as always, he’s an instant too quick for me.

Sliding to his knees, he undoes my trousers and pushes them and my underwear off my hips and down to the middle of my thighs. Tenderly, lovingly, he kisses all around my groin, everywhere except my straining cock, but when I reach for his face, he takes my wrists in both his hands and pins them against my hips, and then, in the same instant, he swallows me whole.

As always, it’s an unimpeachable blow-job. He does everything right and with perfect efficiency and economy. Before I’m even aware of the full extent of my arousal, I feel the muscles in my stomach contract, and the next thing I know I’m thrusting into his mouth, intent on nothing but the imminence of my orgasm. When I come, it’s with my hands clenched into fists at my sides, holding on to nothing. Nothing but air.

He sits back on his heels and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and the only satisfaction I’m afforded is the sight of his barely suppressed trembling.

“Draco,” I whisper, pleading. “I don’t care what happens. I don’t care if you can’t come, if you can’t even get hard. I just want to touch you.”

He raises those silvery eyes to mine, but slowly. Too slowly.

“Please,” I say desperately although I already know the answer. “Please let me.”

“I can’t,” he says in a strangled whisper.

I swallow against the wave of hurt and grief that washes through me.

“You can’t or you don’t want to?”

He closes his eyes for a moment, but when he opens them, they seem impossibly distant, and I feel suddenly transparent and insubstantial – a memory more than a living breathing man. He stands in a single fluid movement, no longer trembling.

“Both,” he says and turns away.

Still recovering from the one-two punch of my orgasm and his seemingly casual rejection, I simply watch him walk to the bathroom and close the door softly behind him. At last, I pull up my trousers and go over to the chair by the window where he’d been sitting. An open book is resting on the seat cushion, and I pick it up before I sit down. I don’t need to read the cover. I already know it’s another medical treatise or perhaps something obscure and probably illegal on switching spells or magickal transference or various kinds of non-mutual bonding or some other bloody thing.

I tilt my head back and stare up at the fancy ceiling moldings. What does he do in there every night after he sucks or wanks me off? He often remains in the bathroom for an hour or more, and sometimes I’ve fallen asleep before he emerges. Brewing his deep-sleep potion, perhaps? Scouring every trace of me from his hands and mouth? Perfecting his polite but expressionless mask in the mirror? Or is he touching himself – imagining his hands are mine . . . or _his_.

I feel white-hot jealousy sear my brain in the same instant my cock gives an interested twitch. Fuck. These orgasms he gives me so dutifully every night are about as satisfying as candy floss. Often I don’t even have the pleasure of anticipation, of slowly building arousal. He brings me off so quickly, so fucking clinically . . .

I wrench open my trousers again and shove my hands into my underwear, angry at him, angry at myself, angry at the whole fucking world. Closing my eyes, I imagine that evening in September – a little more than six months ago, now – when I’d finally agreed to meet Theo for dinner. I hadn’t said yes to anything one-on-one before then – not until Draco woke and grew strong enough to get out of bed and walk by himself to the bathroom, mostly because I wasn’t sure that prior to that I could stop myself from killing Theo if he even so much as said Draco’s name. But there was more to it than that. I was afraid. Afraid of what it was he’d been so desperate to tell me.

There had been the predictable – and predictably awkward – twenty minutes of small talk. He and Luna were working on things. Higglebee is giving him and Elizabeth a hard time. The latest assignment in Jaipur. Isn’t it nice to be in a warm city for once? Blah blah blah. It hadn’t been until the main course that he’d asked me how I was doing, although he’d listened attentively when I told him and hadn’t said anything patronising like, “I’m sure there are many good things about being unable to practice magic,” or “some of my best friends are Squibs.” (Amazingly, I’ve heard both remarks more times than I can count.) I was just starting to loosen up a bit when he dropped the bombshell.

_“Uhm, so . . . has he . . . I mean Malfoy . . .told you anything about what happened while you were . . . uhm . . . unconscious?”_

I’d looked at him for a long time until he grew distinctly uncomfortable under my gaze. The answer was “yes and no,” but I wasn’t about to get into the details of my and Draco’s conversations with Theo. Still, part of me had been curious – _too_ curious – so I’d told him if there was something he was dying to tell me, he should do it now. Or never. After all, more than anything I’d wanted to start to put this behind us. Draco had lived. Amazingly and against all odds. And so had I. As far as I was concerned, that was all that mattered.

Theo had taken a sip of ice water, swallowed, taken another sip, swallowed, and then finally set his glass on the table.

_“I think he fucked him.”_

I stopped cutting my fillet steak and stared at him.

_“Would you mind helping me out a bit with the pronouns?”_

He took another swallow of his water.

_“Malfoy. He fucked Mefodiy.”_

I was unprepared for the intensity of the emotions this simple sentence stirred in my blood. Carefully, I set my knife and fork on my plate, my appetite flown and replaced by a sweetly sickening mixture of jealousy and arousal, curiosity and a restless sourceless directionless violence.

_“How do you know?”_ I’d asked, pleased at how steady my voice sounded.

_“I . . . I saw them.”_

_“You saw them fucking,”_ I repeated.

_“Well, no. Not fucking exactly, but close enough. They were half undressed, snogging. Malfoy took his hand . . . Mefodiy’s, I mean, and put it on his prick. He was definitely the one leading the dance, so to speak. You could tell he was getting off on it . . .”_

I held up my hand, my heart pounding uncomfortably hard, and Theo stopped speaking. Even in the whirlwind of emotions I was feeling, the flush in his cheeks and his quickened breath did not escape my attention.

_“That’s enough, Theo,”_ I said. _“I hardly think you are in any position to tell me what Draco does – or does not – look like when he’s getting off. Is that all you saw?”_

He nodded slowly, and I could tell he wished there was more. Perhaps he’d forgotten that I’m no longer capable of _Legilimency_ , or maybe he’d chosen the path of noble and selfless honesty (I nearly snorted with laughter at the thought), but he did not try to lie to me.

_“What was he wearing?”_ I asked.

Theo stared at me, the surprise on his face almost comical.

_“Excuse me?”_

_“I asked you what Draco was wearing?”_

_“Uh . . . I don’t know if I recall . . .”_

_“Come on, Theo,”_ I said. _“You can recall whose tongue was in whose mouth, and whose hand was on whose cock, but you can’t remember what they were wearing?”_

He was clearly alarmed by my response, and I wondered fleetingly what he’d expected. Was I supposed to weep? Rage? Take a taxi home and beat my lover who was still too weak to stand without a cane? Had he expected me to thank him for showing me Draco’s “true” inner nature?

_“Uh, they were both wearing black trousers and black boots.”_

_“Robes or no robes?”_

He looked at me as though assessing my sanity.

_“They started off with robes. Draco’s . . . I mean, Malfoy’s were already open when I discovered them, as was his shirt. He put his hands on Mefodiy’s chest . . .”_

 _“Wait a minute,”_ I said. _“I thought you said Draco put Mefodiy’s hand on his cock.”_

Theo visibly squirmed in his seat, his brow furrowed like a anxious schoolboy being subjected to line of Socratic questioning.

_“Uhm, this was before that. He started unbuttoning Mefodiy’s robes . . .”_

 _“From what I remember, Mefodiy didn’t seem the type to own a set of robes with buttons,”_ I said conversationally.

Theo flushed angrily.

_“Are you saying that I’m making this up, Harry? That I didn’t really see what I saw?”_

 _“No,”_ I replied, taking a sip of water. _“I’m just trying to get the details straight so when I wank to this later, I won’t have to make anything up as I go along.”_

Theo stared at me, thunderstruck.

_“I’m sorry,”_ I said. _“I interrupted you. Please continue. You were just getting to the part where Draco is undressing Mefodiy. Did he pinch his nipples? Suck on them, perhaps? Draco loves his own treated roughly, and he’s a prince about reciprocating. Mefodiy really missed out if he didn’t get Draco to make him shoot his load at least once just from nipple play alone.”_

 _“Uhm . . . ,”_ Theo stammered. _“Harry, are you serious or are you fucking with me?”_ There was real confusion in his voice.

_“Oh, I’m deadly serious,”_ I say. _“It’ll be weeks yet before Draco will have the strength to fuck me, and in the meantime, I want to wank myself raw over his seduction of that twisted bastard. Tell me, how long could Mefodiy keep himself from getting his hands full of Draco’s arse? And you haven’t told me yet, were they wearing jodhpurs? Ah, they were! Shit! And boots you said? Knee-high? Black? Tell me, Theo, did you get a good look at Draco’s legs? The swell of his calves in all that supple leather? Those long slender thighs. Did you admire the definition between the backs of his legs and his arse? When you rest your hands there and he’s thrusting his cock against yours, you can feel every muscle flex and you just_ know _those are the same muscles he’s going to use to squeeze the last drop of come out of your aching prick when you take him. And did you know that the dimples on either side of his arse cheeks are so well defined, you can drink wine out of them? Is that a shake your head ‘yes,’ or a shake your head ‘I don’t know’? Perhaps that wasn’t one of the things he and I did together that night you spied on us. Pity. I’ve gotten pissed out of my head from the wine I’ve drunk from the various hollows and orifices of his body. Best fucking vintage I’ve ever had.”_

Theo had sprung from his seat as though stung by an angry bee and was staring at me, his chest heaving.

_“Oh, I suppose you didn’t know we were aware of you that night. Aside from what that says about your opinion of my investigatory skills, it certainly says a lot about your opinion of your own acting ability. Do you think I didn’t notice how you treated me for weeks afterward? Did you think I didn’t know you were gagging for a taste of what you’d witnessed?”_

I laughed at his look of horrified mortification.

_“Fuck, Theo. If you’d just asked I might even have said yes. Hell, you might have even convinced Draco to say yes - though that would have taken some serious . . . lubricating of the situation on my part.”_ I grinned wolfishly at my own metaphor. But just as quickly, I let the grin fall away, rendering its absence all the more stark and alarming. Theo had literally flinched.

_“You know that I always did like you, Theo,”_ I said. _“I guess I saw a lot of myself in you. But you made a serious miscalculation tonight - even more serious than casting a Killing Curse at my lover and bonded-mate. What happened that night happened in the heat of battle and in the presence of seven corpses - four of which belonged to children. I have made my peace with what happened, because to do otherwise would be to ignore the role I, myself, played in bringing it all about. But tonight all we were doing was having a pleasant meal, and all I was trying to do was pretend that everything in my life hasn’t been completely fucking fucked. And all the while you were champing at the bit to tell me Draco cheated on me, as if that were something even remotely capable of making me stop loving him. I don’t care if it was Mefodiy, or Voldemort-back-from-the-dead, or anyone else, for that matter. Draco deigns to let me touch him, to let me love him, and that is all I need. If he gives that privilege to other men, then so be it . . .”_

_“What if the other man is Lucius Malfoy?”_

His voice had been so soft, I’d scarcely heard him.

_“Excuse me?”_

_“I said, what if the other man Draco deigned to let touch him, as you put it, was Lucius Malfoy?”_

I’d suddenly realised that I was shaking violently. Clutching the armrests on my chair so hard that my knuckles turned bloodless and white, I whispered, _“Leave, Theo. Leave NOW!”_

And he had. Without a backward glance.

 

The recollection of Theo’s words about Lucius Malfoy have done nothing good for my frustrated wanking. I take a deep, cleansing breath and rewind the conversation mentally, pausing on the image of Draco and Mefodiy rutting against the wall. In my mind, Draco is utterly wanton, grinding his groin against the other man’s, his head thrown back, offering his pale throat to be worshiped. His hair is long enough to brush the middle of his back, and Mefodiy can’t resist touching it as he pulls Draco against him. I know this is the most excited he’s ever been in his life, that he’s never before held anything so rare, so beautiful, so feral in his arms as my lover. Draco is setting him on fire, making him ache to possess him. He slides his hand over the small of Draco’s back, over the tight suede-covered swell of his arse, until it slips between Draco’s legs and he can feel, for the first time, the heat of Draco’s balls against his fingers. He reaches further, deeper, wanting more of that warm weight in his hands, and meanwhile his other hand stays wrapped in Draco’s hair and his mouth caresses that shapely neck, and . . .

I come hard, pushing my shirt up and out of the way. My chest heaves, my heart pounds, and my brain buzzes with static like the Dursleys’ old telly used to at four o’ clock in the morning. When my vision clears again, I notice him leaning against the jamb of the bathroom doorway, his arms crossed, watching me. His expression is inscrutable.

“I was thinking about you,” I say recklessly, gesturing at my softening cock.

“I know,” he says, and I immediately bristle.

“Yeah, I suppose using _Legilimency_ on an unsuspecting Squib isn’t a crime.”

He unfolds his arms and drags his hands through his hair, causing it to stick up in wet spikes. He has never before worn it this short. Not even in school.

“You said my name,” he says.

I shake my head, disoriented and confused.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Just before you came. You said my name. That’s how I knew you were thinking of me.”

I close my eyes.

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he says, pulling off his bathrobe and hanging it on the back of the door. “Are you coming to bed?”

I watch him smooth the silk of his pyjamas with a careless hand and not for the first time wonder if his sense of the erotic died that night - along with that part of his heart I cannot help but know is missing. He pulls back the quilt and climbs into bed. I make no move to join him. Somehow it feels like we’re less far apart on opposite ends of the room than on opposite sides of the bed. Merlin, but I remember how we used to sleep, tangled together as though our bodies were still making love to each other’s even though our brains had drifted into unconsciousness . . .

“But is that why?” I ask suddenly.

“Is what why what?”

“Is that why you won’t let me touch you? Why you won’t let me make love to you? Because I’m a Squib . . .”

His eyes flash angrily, and I feel a corresponding thrill radiate up the length of my spine. _Come on, Draco_ , I think. _Come on, you prickly bastard. Let’s have this out at last._

“How can you even think that?”

“Why? How crazy is it to wonder?” I ask, pressing on despite the way he’s crossed his arms over his chest again and glares at me over reddening cheeks. “I mean you always used to get off on seeing me perform difficult spells. You always said you could feel the power in me when you fucked me, and it made you want me even more. You used to . . .”

“No, Harry!” he shouts. “No, it’s not because you’re a Squib. And while we’re having this conversation, let me assure you that I never came with him . . . with . . . with Mefodiy. I spent half the time worried about whether I’d even be able to get it up . . .”

But I can’t tell if this information makes me feel better. Or worse. So, I say the thing that I know will hurt the most.

“Fuck, Draco. You can’t even say his name. If you loved him so much why didn’t you give _him_ the ring instead of me . . .”

He stares at me, his mouth partly open, and I’m instantly sorry, but when I stand and go to him, he gets out of the bed.

“I’m . . . I’m going to sleep in another room,” he says, his voice noticeably unsteady. He does not look at my face when he goes to retrieve his bathrobe.

“Don’t go.”

It’s all I can think of to say.

“Please, Draco. I’m a fucking bastard. I know I am, but please don’t go.”

“Well, I guess that makes two of us,” he says, smiling wanly. “Fucking bastards, I mean.”

He brushes past me, and as he does, I can smell his hair. His skin. And it makes my teeth ache with longing. I watch him walk to the door and suddenly realise that this is actually happening. That’s he’s actually walking out of a room on me. Out of our bedroom, nonetheless! But I feel powerless to stop him - as though my ability to reach his heart vanished with my ability to fly my broom or cast a levitation charm. But just as his hand touches the doorknob, he pauses and turns to look at me.

“Let me go, Harry. I don’t want to give either of us another opportunity to say something we’ll regret.”

“I’ll shut up,” I say. “I promise. Please. Please come back to bed. I promise I won’t try to speak to you, I won’t try to touch you, I won’t try to kiss you . . .”

His eyes are suddenly very bright, and he ducks his head.

“Good night, Harry,” he whispers. “Sleep well.”

Long after he’s gone, I stand staring at the door, watching the arc of the clothes hanger swinging on its hook slowly narrow, until at last it stops swinging all together. But even then, I remain standing, suddenly aware that it’s now or never, and despite the rings on our fingers, I’m going to lose him if I don’t do the right fucking thing soon.

 

She doesn’t look up from her book when I enter the garden room.

“You’re late,” she says, turning a page with a graceful twitch of her perfectly manicured finger tips.

“Sorry,” I mumble, my mouth full of the biscuit I just plucked off the newly delivered tea tray. Despite having lived here for over a year now, I still have no idea how Bobbin manages to predict my needs like that. “I didn’t know we had a set time.”

She puts the book down and pats the sun-warmed upholstery on the sofa beside her, smiling that enigmatic smile of hers. It used to put me off, but I’ve grown to realise that, for Narcissa Malfoy, it’s a positively unambiguous sign of affection.

“He slept in one of the guest bedrooms last night,” she says, handing me a cup and saucer. I wince.

“I’m not even going to ask you how you know that.”

“House elves,” she says and pauses to take a sip of tea, “are very useful creatures.”

“Indeed.”

We sit quietly, sipping our tea and gazing out into the southeast-facing terrace garden.

“The snowdrops are almost past,” she sighs. “But then they never do last for long, do they.”

I reach for another biscuit.

“Did you not eat breakfast this morning?” she asks without looking at me, but I see her eyebrow arch teasingly as she takes another dainty sip from her teacup.

“No, in fact I didn’t,” I say. “But then I suspect you already knew that. House elves and all.”

“Touché,” she murmurs approvingly.

We sit quietly for another long moment. I’ve learned not to push things during these weekly get-togethers we share - just the two of us. They’d begun shortly after we moved Draco out of St. Mungo’s, and at first neither of us spoke much at all, preferring just to sit in companionable silence, content that we each knew exactly what the other was thinking. But slowly, as it became steadily clearer that Draco would live, we’d started talking. Inconsequential conversations at first, as though both of us were dipping our toes in a bath, unsure if the water was freezing or boiling, but gradually we both grew more comfortable in the other’s company. She’d wanted to know the oddest things, like what sounds Draco makes when he sleeps, and what books he likes to read for pleasure, and what he thinks of Muggle films, and whether he finishes his meal when we ate out at restaurants. My answers were always met with one of two possible responses – either a knowing little smile and a nod, which I interpreted as a “yes, I knew that,” or a concentrated frown, which I grew to interpret as a “how could I not have known that?” But regardless of her response, I’d found answering her questions deeply comforting. They were always so mundane, yet so intimate, and it helped me forget – for an hour or two – that Draco lay unconscious in a bed just over our heads.

Eventually, I’d grown bold enough to ask my own questions. Mostly they were about Draco during the last ten years we’d been together and I was away, but sometimes they were about Draco’s childhood. After my meeting with Theo, my enquiries had taken on a focus, an agenda, that she’d quickly detected. And I’d thought for sure that when she did, our weekly teas would come to an end. But they hadn’t. Although she never looked at me when she spoke of her late husband.

At last, little less than a month ago, she’d confessed – her expression more rigid than I’ve ever seen it – that she had long suspected that Lucius may have “touched Draco inappropriately,” but her suspicions were never confirmed. Perhaps, she’d said, her voice quiet and sad, because she’d never sought to confirm them. It was just one more thing she’d felt powerless to stop, and somehow not knowing for sure that it was happening absolved her of the responsibility to act.

_“He must never know this,”_ she’d said desperately, her gaze dropping from mine and her cheeks lit from within like a lantern as she burned with shame before my eyes. _“I cannot bear to think he knows I knew – or suspected, rather.”_

I did not tell her that I thought it very likely that he already did.

 

“Whose idea was it?”

I start out of my thoughts, nearly spilling tea down the front of my shirt.

“Huh? What? Sorry.”

“Whose idea was it to sleep in separate rooms?”

“His,” I say dully. “I asked him not to go, but he did.”

She sighs heavily.

“He was like that as a boy, too. Whenever he began to think he might fail at something – some task, some goal – he would sabotage his chances. It was always easier for him to do the rejecting than to face rejection.”

I snort ruefully.

“Yeah, I can see that, looking back. But Draco’s no longer a schoolboy and hasn’t been for a long long time. This,” I pause to make a vague gesture with my free hand, “whatever it is, is not an effort to sabotage something. If anything, he seems to believe that he already _has_ sabotaged everything, and now he’s serving out some kind of sentence. But what he seems to refuse to believe is that I forgave him everything – a long time ago – and his self-imposed punishment hurts me as much as it hurts him. Probably more.”

She is silent for a long time, gazing out the window.

“I’d like to meet the boy,” she says at last.

I frown.

“Alyosha, you mean?”

She smiles and turns her head to look at me.

“What other boy could I possibly be referring to, Potter?”

Recognising her teasing as a thin disguise to her profound discomfort, I give her a broad smile.

“All right. I’ll talk to Hermione.”

She turns back to the window.

“More tea?” she asks politely.

I nod, and she levitates the teapot to pour me a cup. She’s one of the few people who still does casual, nonessential magic in my presence, and I appreciate her refusal to coddle me more than I’ll ever be able to say.

“We’ll have to do it when Draco isn’t here,” I say. “Maybe in a couple of weeks when he starts work again. Which would be best, actually, because Hermione will need at least that long to prepare Alyosha.”

“He needn’t know who I am,” she says. “I just want to see him.”

“I know. But Hermione and Neville decided a long time ago not to . . .” I pause. I was going to say, “not to lie to him,” but for some reason the phrasing feels unsafe and even oddly unkind under the circumstances. “They decided to be as open and honest about things as possible. He’s a smart kid,” I add.

And kids understand a lot more than the adults around them usually think they do.

She nods.

“So, they’ll tell him that I am Draco’s mother?”

“Yes, and that this is the house you live in, and that he lives here, too. With me.”

She glances at me, surprised.

“You would bring him here? I’m not adverse to going to Longbottom’s estate, you know.”

I’m silent for a minute, weighing how much I should let her in on my thoughts.

“I think . . . I think it’s time, Narcissa,” I say, at last. “The British wizarding community is small. Draco and Alyosha will meet again – somewhere, sometime. It would be easier, on _both_ of them, if it happened in a safe and controlled environment.”

She looks at me.

“You’re doing this for Draco,” she says. It’s not a question. “I hope you’ve considered all of the ramifications for the boy.”

I return her gaze steadily.

“You should know by now that everything I do, I do for Draco,” I say. “And sod the rest of the world.”

Her lips press in a thin line, and I feel the mingled approval and condemnation radiating from her like the heat warping the air above the black slate covered terrace.

“Just remember,” she says. “That that little boy probably holds the life of my own in his unwitting hands. Irony notwithstanding.”

I close my eyes briefly before nodding.

“Indeed,” I reply, and raise my teacup in a gesture of comprehension before draining it in a single gulp.

 

He returns from his walk just as the first raindrops splatter against the window. I watch him from where I’m sitting, halfway up the stairs, as he closes the door and flicks his head to the side. I’ve seen him do this before when he’s just emerged from the shower, and I suspect he’s forgotten for an instant that his hair no longer brushes his shoulders. I wonder what other habits have refused to die, asserting themselves resolutely like the behavioural equivalent of a ghost limb.

He removes his coat and vanishes it with a quick _Evanesco_ , and that, more than his demeanour or the absence of a greeting, indicates that he doesn’t know I’m here. I watch him survey the entrance hall wearily, as though everything on which his gaze falls contains some kind of unspoken rebuke. How long has it been like this? Or maybe the more appropriate question is how long since I stopped pretending not to see?

Bobbin appears and asks if he wants tea in the library. He stands, brow furrowed, seeming to consider her question for an inordinately long time, as though it involves hidden perils and ramifications he wishes to consider thoroughly before answering.

“All right,” he sighs. “Fine.”

Oblivious to her master’s tone, Bobbin squeaks a cheerful “yes sir!” and Disapparates.

“Draco,” I say from the shadows, and he jumps at the sound, his hand flying unconsciously to his throat.

“You startled me.”

I stand slowly and make my way down the dozen or so stone steps, my hand trailing along the bannister. He watches me with a disturbing, but intoxicating, mixture of apprehension and desire.

“You can’t run away from me forever, you know.”

He frowns.

“I’m not trying to run away from you. I was just out for a walk. As you well know, it’s still the only form of exercise I’m capable of . . .”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

His chin tilts up almost imperceptibly – and almost haughtily. I smile.

“It suits you,” I say. “The fresh air, the walk. You come back looking almost like yourself.”

I am unprepared for the way he visibly deflates upon hearing my words. He turns his head, signalling the return of the strange air of resignation he’s acquired of late.

“I’m taking tea in the library if you care to join me,” he says, but I can tell, as much from his tone as his refusal to look at me, that he does not really mean his invitation. I feel my will for this encounter leave me.

“No thanks,” I say. “I was just on my way out.”

He nods.

“All right. I suppose I’ll see you later then.”

I notice he doesn’t even ask where I am going.

“Yeah. Righto,” I say brutally and brush past him much as he did to me last night. I don’t even bother to grab a coat on my way out the door.

 

The rain is coming down in earnest by the time I reach the lane, and my shirt is soaked through and clinging to my skin. Caught between my burning cheeks and the chill March air, my glasses steam up, and no amount of wiping them on the leg of my trousers seems to help. I stand, glaring at the soggy lane and the dripping hedge on the other side. Merlin, what would I give to be able to Portkey somewhere by myself, to Apparate with scarcely a thought, to Floo, to fly my broom. Fuck, I’d give my right hand if I could so much as summon the fucking Knight Bus!

Suddenly, as though I’ve just been kicked in the gut by a mule, the world comes crashing down on me, and I feel a harsh sound escape through my chattering teeth. For so long – for _months_ – I’d prayed for Draco to be all right, to squeeze my fingers, to open his eyes. I’d lain for countless hours on the bed beside him, staring at his gaunt profile and making a million bargains with every Muggle god I could think of. How many times had I sworn that I would never ask for anything more in my life than to hear his voice again? If someone, some fairy-fucking-godmother, had come to me during one of those long nights and endless days and said, “Harry Potter, I will wake Draco Malfoy, but he will never again look at you with love and longing,” I would have said, “what the fuck are you waiting for?!” But here we are, little more than six months later, and I’m already saying things like “Yeah, righto,” as I practically slam the door in his face!

Somehow, whether in sympathy or mockery, the rain manages to fall even harder as I stagger weakly to one of the carved stone gateposts and lean into it, dropping my head into my folded arms. As cold and bleak as the rain is, it has succeeded in turning a tiny key in some tiny rusted keyhole in my chest, and I’m finally crying. For the first time in what feels like forever. Crying as though my heart were broken, which, of course, it is.

The body that pins me against the unforgiving stone is warm and dry and _furious_. I feel arms encircle me from behind, and suddenly I’m being pulled back fiercely and wrapped in the long soft folds of a Merino wool cloak. I offer no resistence, letting myself be manhandled roughly, angrily. But when my head falls back against a shoulder and I see the curve of a jaw and white blond hair and a silver stud in a cold, pink-tinged earlobe, I start to sob again in hitching breaths.

“Fuck _you_ , Malfoy!” I rasp, suddenly determined to struggle against his patronising ministrations. “Leave me alone!” Here I am, the petulant Squib who’s run off in the rain and forced the cool collected master of the fucking house to muddy his boots going after him . . .

He tightens his arms around me painfully, and I’m suddenly aware of how much of his strength has returned. I thrash and buck and squirm, trying to extricate myself, but he just pulls me closer.

“Go ahead,” I shout. “Go ahead and put a body-bind on me. _Mobilicorpus_ me back to the house. You know you want to, so _just do it!_ ”

He brings his head forward in the same instant I throw mine back, and we collide.

“Fuck!” he sputters, and I see blood splatter the front of my shirt, fading almost instantly to pink in the wet white cloth. “Harry, for fuck sake!”

He crushes me against his body with such force that my chest is squeezed empty of air, and I’m suddenly afraid I’ll suffocate. It’s the most alive I’ve seen him since he woke up – since he came back from the dead one morning at the sound of my voice calling him, without preamble, without warning, his eyes locking with mine just as they had before he’d fallen on the floor of that dining room in Irkutsk, his hair fanned out around his head in the fine dusting of plaster, like moonlight on snow . . .

“Harry,” he says against my neck. “Stop. Please stop.”

But what he wants me to stop isn’t clear. He could be telling me to stop struggling or to stop crying or to stop wanting things to be different or to stop wishing that I’d never woken up.

“Please,” he groans. “ _Please._ ”

There is something – something in his voice that causes me to turn in his arms, and when I do, his mouth finds mine before I even have time or the presence of mind to take a breath. And suddenly his hands are in my hair, gripping hard and causing my glasses to slip down awkwardly on my nose. He’s kissing me hungrily – _ravenously_ – the blood still seeping from his nose and mixing with spit and rain water. I can taste its coppery heat, smell the tang of it against the backdrop of new grass and cold wet stone. He holds my face firmly as he plunders my mouth, twisting his head to reach every last inch with his tongue. I open my mouth wider to give him unfettered access, and he groans again, pouring himself into me as if he, too, has turned to rainwater and is intent on nothing but soaking into my skin and trickling down through the roots of my hair.

Unclenching my hands from the front of his robes, I reach up and wrap my arms around his shoulders, feeling the tingle of the repelling and warming charms he’d cast on himself. But neither protect him from the dampness of my shirt and the chill of my fingers, and he shivers violently against me when I touch the bare skin of his neck. The involuntary reflex rippling through his entire body – the closest thing to an orgasm I’ve felt from him in nearly a year and a half – is my final undoing. I moan into his kiss, surrendering completely to his hands and his mouth, and he responds by pushing me about a foot backward and pinning me with the length of his body against the gatepost.

“So, so beautiful,” he murmurs, tearing his mouth from mine for a moment, but only long enough to lap the rain water off the skin of my jaw and throat. “So good, Harry. You taste so good.”

I brace myself and open my legs, inviting him to rest himself between them, and after only a moment’s hesitation, he accepts. His hands find my hips and hold them firmly as his mouth continues to caress my throat and neck. He catches a lock of my hair between his lips and sucks the water from it, as though he were a man dying of thirst. I wrap my arms around his waist and draw him closer against me as he lowers his head and kisses the cold triangle of skin at my open collar. By the time his mouth finds the hard peak of my nipple, blood-dark through the near-transparency of my wet shirt, I know I’m going to come.

He must know it, too, because I feel him groan against my painfully sensitive flesh, and it’s the first time I’ve heard him respond so viscerally to my arousal. He rolls my nipple between his teeth, and the shock it sends to my groin is like a volt of electricity ripping along a downed wire, causing it to thrash like a wounded serpent on the ground. Somehow, the presence of the thin cloth between the hard enamel of his teeth and my tender nub only serves to magnify the sensation. I press my head back against the gatepost and screw my eyes shut, concentrating on the sensation of his warm mouth against my chest, but then his hand releases my hip and finds my other nipple, rolling and pinching it, and I feel heat bloom inside my belly with the force of an explosion.

“Draco,” I moan. “Draco, I’m going to come. Touch me. I want to come on your hand . . .”

Without removing his mouth from my chest, he wrenches my belt open and undoes my trousers. 

“Want to feel myself come under your hand, Draco,” I pant. “Hurry! Oh god, oh god . . .” 

He shoves his hand roughly into my underwear and closes it over my cock just as I feel the first spasms deep in my gut. In the same instant he catches my shirt-covered nipple between his teeth again and _tugs_.

“Ah _FUCK!_ ” I hear myself cry out, and then I’m able to do nothing more than grunt and come, pumping my hips, pressing my cock into his warm palm, the shudders radiating through my body like the aftershocks following an earthquake. It’s only after I’ve stopped trembling all over, that I feel tears mingling with the rain still trickling down my cheeks.

He buries his face in my neck.

“Hush,” he says. “Hush, Harry. Don’t cry. I can’t take it. I just can’t take it.”

I stroke his hair with an unsteady hand.

“I’m not crying because I’m sad,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, burrowing even deeper. “I can’t take it at all, for any reason.”

I lean forward until my lips brush his ear, and he shivers.

“You love me,” I say, the awe in my voice evident even to me. “You love me, Draco.”

He chokes on a sob.

“How could you have ever doubted it? How did I ever let that happen?!”

“Shush,” I say, smoothing my hands over his back in an effort to comfort him in turn. “Let’s go home. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sleep a wink last night, and I could do for a nap.”

He straightens and wipes his nose on his sleeve, leaving a faint trail of blood.

“Not a wink,” he says smiling weakly.

“Come on,” I say, pouring every ounce of love and gratitude that I feel into the simple words, and reach for his hand. “Let’s go find our bed.”


	11. Chapter 11

“He has frightfully bad manners,” says Narcissa, and I sense Hermione stiffen beside me.

The three of us are sitting on the terrace, drinking tea in the tepid sunlight and eating finger sandwiches – now that Bobbin’s fetched us a new tray, that is. Alyosha ate the entire first tray by himself, one sandwich after another, without even seeming to swallow before cramming another into his mouth.

“He’s just a little boy,” Hermione replies.

“And little boys cannot be taught manners? My Draco would never have . . .”

I clear my throat and shift in my chair, trying to intercept Hermione’s inevitable response, but I’m too late.

“Really?” she says icily. “I seem to remember more than one meal at Hogwarts punctuated by his temper tantrums over one thing or another, and how could I forget . . .”

Positively scandalised, Narcissa arches not one – but two – eyebrows at Hermione.

“I sincerely doubt . . .”

I clear my throat again, this time more loudly, and they both turn their heads in my direction as if noticing my presence for the first time.

“As Draco isn’t here to defend – or explain himself,” I add with a nod and acknowledging wink in Hermione’s direction, “I think we should leave him out of our conversation.”

Narcissa smiles politely and turns her attention back to the garden where Alyosha is chasing two young house elves through the miniature maze. The top of his blond head is the only indication of his whereabouts – well, except for the terrified shrieks of the elves, that is.

“Maybe we should find him some other form of entertainment,” I say with another conciliatory glance at Hermione.

“Aly!” she calls. “Aly, come here please!”

But either he doesn’t hear her or he’s ignoring her entirely. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Narcissa’s smirk.

“Raising boys isn’t nearly as easy as raising girls,” she says sweetly.

Hermione glares at her.

“And you would know this how?”

“Aly’s . . . behavioral quirks, for lack of a better term, are hardly Hermione’s fault, Narcissa,” I say as diplomatically as possible with a mouthful of sandwich. “He was clearly spoiled rotten for the first seven years of his life.”

Hermione snorts into her tea.

“Sounds familiar,” she murmurs so softly that only I can hear her.

“Not as much as you might think,” I reply sharply, and Narcissa looks at me.

“Pardon?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

Hermione glances between the two of us and appears to deduce what I’ve been hinting at all along – it’s best to skip the discussion of Alyosha’s upbringing. For a million different reasons.

Hermione draws her wand from her robes and says a quick “ _Sonorous_.”

“ALYOSHA FYODOROV! PLEASE COME HERE THIS INSTANT! _Finite_.”

The little blond head stops short, and it’s clear he doesn’t realise that he’s visible to us over the tops of the low hedges because he makes no move either to answer or obey. But neither does he continue his persecution of the house elves who finally escape from the maze and run shrieking up the hill toward the kitchen doors like two Muggle balloons with the air let out of them abruptly.

“Merlin, what a terror,” Narcissa exclaims, but I notice that she’s scarcely able to suppress the smile I see tugging at her coral-painted lips.

“Aly!” yells Hermione, and this time the blond head turns and begins a slow, reluctant journey toward the entrance of the maze.

“Draco loved that place when he was little, too,” says Narcissa. “It’s the main reason I never had it vanished and replaced with something more attractive and requiring less maintenance. I just have too many memories of sitting at this very table, watching him . . .”

“. . . chase house elves?” interrupts Hermione, but I see that, like Narcissa, there’s a fond smile playing at the corners her mouth as well.

“Sometimes,” Narcissa concedes, turning her attention to Alyosha’s grudging approach and her still-beautiful profile to us. “But he used to take his books and toys in there, too, and stay for hours. I used to think he was looking for attention – for someone to come looking for him.” 

She sighs, setting her teacup in its saucer with a faintly tremulous hand.

“But now I believe he must have been hiding . . .” She falls silent, and Hermione and I are both too shocked to respond.

“Please excuse me for a moment,” says Narcissa, standing rather abruptly with a forced little smile. “I . . . I have something the boy might like to play with. I’ll be right back.”

And before either of us can reply, she disappears through the French doors. Hermione remains staring at the dark interior for a moment before turning back to me.

“What was that all about?”

I look past her left shoulder, squinting into the sun. My eyes feel unused to it after the long, cold, snowless winter we’ve endured, and its light almost feels like an imposition, an unwelcome visitor. Amazing how quickly we grow used to our discomfort, I think fleetingly. And greet its alleviation with such distrust. Must be that “devil you know thing,” I suppose . . .

“Harry?”

I consider telling her – my suspicions, my fears, my anger, my heartbreak – but until Draco either confirms or denies them, they are nothing more than that. They are not truths.

“I think,” I say carefully, “you just witnessed a mother who came too close to losing her child.”

Hermione nods and reaches for the teapot.

“Top off?” she asks but doesn’t wait for my answer before filling my cup. We drink our tea in silence for a moment.

“Perhaps that explains much,” she says at last.

“What explains much?”

“Draco hiding,” she says.

A thousand memories flash before my eyes upon hearing her words – the disdainful brat who told Hagrid that he didn’t _do_ servant’s work and if his father were to find out . . . ; the cavalier aggression in his posture but only when Crabbe and Goyle were at his side . . . ; the hunched shoulders and furious tears in a girls’ loo . . . ; the haughty but completely closed-off expression at those early post-War events . . . ; the wanton arching of his sweat-sheened back under the harsh light of a single lightbulb as he was fucked by nameless, faceless men (me included) . . . ; the single tear that escaped as he fucked me that first time . . . ; the calm resignation – the final _surrender_ – as he sat on that bench in his dungeon, completely naked, his mind wide open to me, concealing nothing. Offering everything.

Vaguely, I’m aware of Hermione rising from her chair and going to Alyosha to brush the grass cuttings and twigs from his dress robes. I close my eyes, feeling the sunlight on my face, and try to remember . . .

A man, very much like Draco in almost every aspect, sitting in a chair by a fire with a little boy, no older than Alyosha, on his lap. He cradles the boy’s head in one hand, stroking his hair with casual intimacy, and in the other, he holds a book. He’s obviously reading aloud, though I cannot hear what it’s about, the boy’s eyes are closed in obvious trust and contentment . . . ; the same man and the same boy, although older – the boy is weeping hot frustrated tears, but the man’s face is impassive, expressionless, bored . . . ; a perfectly-manicured hand on the flat smooth belly of a teenager, the fingertips slipping past the waistband of the boy’s trousers before they freeze and stay frozen – for what feels like an eternity as the boy’s mind careens between fear, shame and adolescent arousal . . . ; a fleeting glimpse, as though seen at a great speed, of two pale blond heads in a sea of excited, cheering Hogwarts students, the man’s face is stern, disapproving, and a crushing feeling of failure fills my mind . . . ; the boy, older now, almost a man, trying to cast a _Cruciatus_ at the man but failing, while the man, shirtless and breathing hard laughs – laughs harder than the boy-who-is-almost-a-man ever remembers having seen him laugh before . . . 

“This is boring.”

I jolt out of my revery – the memories of all the things Draco had shown me that night when I’d slipped into his mind that first time, at his invitation – falling away and leaving me shaken and, if anything, more confused than I’d been before.

Alyosha throws himself against the seat cushions and crosses his arms over his chest, kicking Narcissa’s empty chair.

“Do not kick the furniture,” says Hermione. “That is not acceptable behavior.”

I brace for one of their usual arguments, but it never materialises. Instead Alyosha simply stops abusing the chair, although he remains glaring at the pitcher of milk as though it were the source of all bad things in the universe.

“I hate it here,” he says flatly, but I hear the real sentiment loud and clear. He doesn’t dislike the house and the gardens as much as he hates what they represent – or rather, _who_ they represent.

Hermione must know what he means, too, because she smiles sadly at me before saying, “this is Harry’s house, too.”

Alyosha looks at me, his eyes – as always – unnervingly intense.

“Why does not Harry come to live with us?” he asks without looking at Hermione. His eyes remain fixed on me.

“Because . . . ,” says Hermione, drawing out the word to about five syllables and clearly stalling for time.

“Because _this_ is where I live,” I tell him. “Here with Mrs. Malfoy and Draco. I like living here. This is my home.”

Alyosha starts kicking Narcissa’s chair again, and Hermione is just about to admonish him once more, when the French doors open. Alyosha freezes, and I am struck breathless by what I see in his eyes as they fly to see who is joining us – a mixture of terror and anger . . . and desperate hopeful yearning.

“I apologise for taking so long,” says Narcissa, as she steps through the doors and shuts them behind her. “I thought I remembered where I’d stored them . . .”

But I hardly hear her. The emotions that flicker across Alyosha’s face – relief mingled with disappointment – have captured all my attention like a black rock on a white sand beach absorbs the sun. Perhaps . . .

“. . . my son’s Quidditch figurines. I thought he might like to play with them,” says Narcissa, opening a polished wooden box and handing it to Alyosha, who looks curious despite himself.

“Uhm . . . ,” says Hermione anxiously, and Narcissa turns to her.

“Surely, you’re not going to stop the boy from playing Quidditch when he starts at Hogwarts. I know you and your husband didn’t play, but that doesn’t mean . . .”

I clear my throat. Again.

“Squibs can’t play Quidditch. Or go to Hogwarts,” I say very quietly, and Hermione and Narcissa both turn to me with dawning horror on their faces.

“Oh Harry,” says Hermione. “I’m so sorry. I forgot . . .”

“Please,” says Narcissa, her cheeks very pink. “Do not apologise. It was I who was insensitive. I completely forgot about both you and the boy, Harry.”

I bite back an angry retort. They both look so mortified. Pulling a self-indulgent little scene would only make them feel worse.

“It’s fine,” I say briskly. “Don’t worry about me. But I do think that perhaps I should be the one to introduce Alyosha to the concept of Quidditch, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” says Narcissa quickly and then turns to Hermione. “Perhaps Ms. Longbottom would like a tour of the newly redecorated west wing?”

I bite back a snort of laughter, knowing full well that Hermione would rather clean Blast-Ended Skrewt cages than talk drapes and upholstery with Narcissa Malfoy. But she must see the plea in my eyes because she stands with a gracious nod.

“I’d like that very much,” she replies before turning to Alyosha, who is poking about interestedly in Draco’s box of old Quidditch memorabilia. “Aly, I’m going to take a walk with Mrs. Malfoy now. You can stay here with Harry, all right?”

He glances at her and then at me and nods. Pausing for only an instant, Hermione leans over and kisses the top of his white-blond head.

“Be a good boy, sweetie,” she murmurs against his hair and then straightens. “And you, too,” she says, shaking a mock-stern finger in my direction.

“Yes, ma’am!” I say with a salute, and Alysoha giggles loudly behind his hand.

Hermione turns to glare at me before she and Narcissa disappear through the doors.

“If he develops any new bad habits over the next week, I’ll know who to blame,” she says, and I wave her off.

“So,” I say, turning back to Alyosha. “Do they even have Quidditch in Siberia?”

“What is Quidditch?”

“Guess that answers that question,” I say. “Quidditch is a game that witches and wizards in Europe play. And most former European colonial territories . . .”

“. . . like India,” he pipes in, and I nod, smiling broadly.

“Very good,” I say. “I forgot that you’re a little smarty-pants. My apologies.”

I reach over and tousle his hair. He allows it for a second longer than last time before pulling away with a scowl.

“So, what is this game?”

I stand and pull my chair around to his side of the table, so that we’re sitting elbow-to-elbow. I reach into the box and pull out a little figure on a broom, closing my fingers instinctively to prevent it from zooming off. And for an instant I’m confused when it remains frozen and inert in my hand. Perhaps the figurines are too old or something. After all, Draco must have started collecting them when he was around Alyosha’s age and had almost certainly stopped by the age of fifteen or sixteen . . . But then again, I’ve never heard of magical Quidditch figurines losing their ability to fly . . .

And then, of course, it hits me. It’s not the figurines but _me_ that is broken. Because of this boy’s father, nonetheless! I feel a surge of resentment towards Alyosha, but before it can become a conscious thought, I snuff it out like a candle. After all, the figurines aren’t moving in _his_ hands, either.

I set the figurine firmly on the table top.

“This,” I say resolutely, “is a Seeker. Draco and I were Seekers at Hogwarts – the school that Hermione and Neville’s daughters attend. Two of the best in the school’s history, too, I might add.”

He picks up the little figure and examines it closely. I swallow the laugh that bubbles in my chest when I see its hair has been painted blond, and it’s dressed in green and silver. On a whim, I pull the box to me and began rooting through it, searching for the tiny figure’s rival, and when I find it, I have to blink back sudden tears. Not only does it wear red and gold, but someone had drawn crude ink spectacles on its face.

I draw my sleeve across my eyes and look up to find Alyosha watching me intently.

“Right,” I say, my voice raw with so many conflicting emotions I can’t even _begin_ to count them. “So, the Seekers fly around on their brooms and try to catch the Snitch, and the Beaters, which are these guys . . . opps, excuse me, gals . . . fly around and try to hit the Bludgers . . . ”

 

 

“Draco?”

“Mmmmmm?” comes the sleepy response from the pillow beside mine.

“Nothing. Just wanted to see if you were awake.”

“Am now. What’s wrong? Why can’t you sleep?”

“Don’t know. Too tired maybe. You know how sometimes you’re too tired to fall asleep?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever had that particular problem.”

He yawns.

“You never did get to tell me at dinner before your Mum started off on that tirade about the Minister – how did your meeting with Lawrence go this morning?”

“Fine, I suppose. Awkward. You know how he is, though.”

“Yeah. But you can’t tell me he isn’t glad to have you back?”

“No, he’s glad. In his own way, that is.”

I snort.

“His own awkward dorky way.”

I feel the blankets move as he turns over on to his side. I find his hand, twining our fingers together. I would love to reach for him and pull his body against mine – not because I want to fuck him, but because I long to feel his warmth, his solid undeniable presence, in my arms. But he’s made it clear to me over the months since he woke that too much physical contact makes him uncomfortable, and rather than have him go rigid again in my arms (something that never fails to kill a little piece of my heart) I content myself with his hand and his fingers and, occasionally, his wrist. Though I have yet to summon the courage – or the strength – to ask him about the raised scars I’ve found there.

“He’s not going to like it when I give him the news,” he says softly.

“Who?” I ask. “Lawrence? What news are you going to give him?”

He sighs, and I feel his breath ruffle my fringe.

“I’ve decided that there is something I need to do.”

My heart freezes mid-beat, and my blood turns cold with sudden dread.

“What have you decided you need to do?” I ask, feeling as though I’m forcing out each word on a separate breath.

“I need to go back to Vienna with that healer Longbottom and Hermione brought to St. Mungo’s.”

I’m silent, my pulse pounding in my ears. I’m aware that I’m sweating all of a sudden, and I wonder if he can sense my anxiety.

“Does this have anything to do with that meeting you and he had last week?”

I hear a rustle in the vicinity of his head and suspect that he’s nodding, but then he clears his throat and says, “yes.”

“And you still don’t want to tell me what you spoke about?”

I hear another rustle and suspect he’s shaking his head. But this time there’s no verbal response, and the silence washes over us like water.

“How long will you be away?” It’s the only remotely safe response I can think of.

“A couple of weeks, maybe longer.”

More silence. I can hear a soft ticking as the iron in the fire grate cools.

“Is . . . is whatever you’re going to do . . . is it illegal?” The real question I want to ask is “is it dangerous?” but not only am I not sure he’ll answer, but I’m equally unsure that I’ll be able to bear it if he does.

“Probably,” he says. And in many ways that answers both the spoken _and_ unspoken questions.

“You know,” I say, not trying to disguise the hoarseness in my voice. “If I wasn’t a Squib I would use _Legilimency_ on you right now, whether you liked it or not.”

He doesn’t answer for a long time, but at last he says, “Fair enough. I’d probably do the same if our roles were reversed.”

And like so many things he’s told me in the last eight months, I don’t know whether that makes me feel better. Or worse.

 

When I finally fall asleep, I dream of this time last year.

I’m in this same room, except it’s not nearly as cavernous and sparsely furnished as it is now. Healers bustle around with an air of efficiency, making me feel like I don’t belong here – that I’m nothing more than a nuisance, an inconvenient fact. Potions boil and steam on the hearth, and the bedside tables are cluttered with diagnostic equipment, damp cloths, and half-empty bottles. Outside, whinchats swoop and dive, singing that strange raspy song of theirs that I only ever hear in Wiltshire. The windows have been opened magically, and sunlight seems to billow the heavy drapes like sails, casting fitful patterns on the smooth oak floor. But the figure in the vast four-poster bed is as still as ever.

Somewhere, in some distant part of my brain, I’m screaming at myself that this is a dream. Nothing but a dream. But the admonishments do nothing to soothe the ever-present crush of pain in my chest when I look at Draco. I have seen him in a thousand different states. I have seen him cool and perfectly self-contained, sitting at a table with his fellow panelists at the front of a packed auditorium. I have seen him half-drunk and on the verge of pissing himself with laughter at some joke I’ve just told him. I’ve seen him when he thinks no one is watching, his face artlessly open and his expression boyish and curious as he skims through a new acquisition from Flourish & Blotts, his hands smoothing the soft leather binding with a lover’s touch. I have seen him sallow-complected and bright-eyed, his face beaded with sweat and dried sick in the corner of his mouth. I have seen him curl his upper lip in derision and contempt. I have seen his eyes roll back and his face open itself completely to my gaze as he came. I have seen him dash angry tears from his eyes, chastise his subordinates, and brush a fond kiss against his mother’s cheek. I have watched him lose himself in a painting, a piece of music, the slow unfurling view from the window of a train. I have seen him triumphant and disappointed, eager and aloof, sleepy-eyed and humming with energy, in pain and in pleasure and sometimes a mixture of both. But I have never – never – seen him completely exanimate. There is nothing in his face that even indicates he’s alive, and if I hadn’t felt for his pulse a thousand times a day, I would not have believed the endless parade of healers who assured me that no, despite every indication to the contrary and every known medical fact, Draco Malfoy is not dead.

Then suddenly - and because this is a dream - the ever-present crowd of healers and well-wishers and curiosity-seekers vanishes, and we’re alone. My awake self is screaming at me to leave, to wake up, to do _anything_ except what it is I’m about to do. But I ignore it and walk slowly towards the bed.

In my dream, Draco doesn’t look like he actually did during those months he remained unconscious, despite my constant care and vigilance. He’s not emaciated and atrophied, his skin marred by bed sores and diagnostic scars. His face isn’t grey-hued, and his hair isn’t limp and oily. Instead he looks much as he does now, a year later – his body slender but strong, his hair cropped short, and his skin unblemished and smooth. He smells like spring sunlight and sexual arousal, not like medicinal ointments and soiled bedclothes. He is naked when I pull the sheet back, his penis already half hard and twitching against the flat smooth muscles of his groin. I feel dirty for doing this when he’s unconscious and cannot consent to anything, but I’m aching so hard to touch him, to feel his body underneath mine, to slip between the open V of his thighs. I can’t help myself. Fumbling in my urgency, I strip to the skin, kicking my clothes aside. I climb up on to the bed until I’m on all fours, my hands on either side of his head and my knees between his legs. My body is humming from his proximity, as if it were a tuning fork designed to pick up a frequency emanating from him and him alone. With excruciating slowness, I lower myself on to his body, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that once my skin is flush with his that I am going to come - from nothing more than the sheer contact.

When I’m less than a foot from him, I sense his body heat, like a _Protego_ , hovering above him in a palpable barrier. Drawing a deep breath, I penetrate it, and it feels like not just my cock, but my whole body has slipped inside his, and my hips start to move reflexively, even though there are still about eight inches between us. I am overcome with animal need. I want to take him so completely that we cease to be separate entities. I want to bury myself in his bowels, in his bone and sinew. I want to come with my cock so deep in his arse that he’ll taste me on his tongue. If I could, I’d split his head open and straddle his face, fucking the soft grey matter of his brain while I sucked his cock down my throat. Merlin, but I can’t stand it _one more second!_ This business of being apart. Of being separate bodies, separate people. I want to make him writhe and buck and curl his toes. I want to make him come again and again and scream my name with every spurt, every shudder. I want to make him laugh and cry out and sob. I want . . .

The instant my body pushes past that last centimetre that separates us, and I feel his warm living skin against mine, I start to come. Hard. My whole body gripped with the force of my orgasm, and in that same instant, the flesh melts from his bones, and his eyes hollow out into empty sockets, and I’m suddenly aware that my cock is sliding between ribs sharp as knives, and I’m coming into an empty chest cavity . . .

Behind me, the spring morning has transformed into a winter’s night, and snow is swirling in through the still-open windows, melting like tears on my face and running in cold rivulets down my back. And through it all, I can’t stop screaming. Not even to take a breath.

I wake in Draco’s arms.

“You can’t go,” I gasp against his neck. “Don’t leave me. Draco, I’m _begging_ you.”

His arms tighten around my shoulders, and he squeezes me fiercely.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he whispers, his voice rough but resolute. “I’m sorry. But just as you felt you needed to do what you did with Evans, I need to do this. And just as you said ‘to hell with Draco,’ I’m going to say ‘to hell with you.’ I’m sorry. But that’s just the way it’s going to be.”

He squeezes me again, hard, but he also bends to kiss the top of my head.

“I love you, Harry Potter,” he says. “Don’t forget that. Everything I’ve done has been out of love for you. Every amazing generous joyful fucked-up twisted evil thing I’ve ever done. Now I have to do something for myself. If you cannot understand that, then at least promise me you won’t stand in my way. I can only bear to say no to you once. I’m not strong enough to do it again.”

I take a shuddering breath against his chest, filling every vacant space in my body with his scent, his presence.

“All right,” I say. “But only because I love you, and because everything _I’ve_ ever done is for the love of you.”

He snorts softly, ruffling my hair with his breath.

“Everything except that one thing you did for Evans.”

“No,” I whisper. “Even that. You would not have liked the person I would have come home as if I hadn’t done everything in my power to save him. You would not have recognised the man I would have become.”

He is silent for a long time.

“It would appear that you _do_ understand,” he says at last but very quietly. “Why am I not surprised?”

He kisses me again, and I can _feel_ the love bordering on reverence radiating from him like body heat.

“Go back to sleep, Harry,” he whispers against my neck. “My love. My life.”

_My undoing_ , I think hazily, filling in the blank he left empty as I find myself wondering if, perhaps, it’s true that I am the worst thing that ever happened to Draco Lucius Malfoy.

 

I wake before he does and dress quietly in the bathroom. I still have clothes at the Kensington flat, so there isn’t much to pack – just my toothbrush and my razor and the books I’ve been reading.

I consider leaving a note, just as I had that morning I left St. Petersburg for Irkutsk, but just as I hadn’t been able to find the right words then, I’m unable to find them now. Pretty much everything that needed saying got said last night. A note would either sound too trite or too ominous. Sometimes, I’ve found, silence is far more eloquent than words could ever be.

The sun is just rising as I make my way down the driveway to the lane. I walk quickly, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and the Manor before he wakes. I doubt he’ll come looking for me, knowing full well that this is my way – my _only_ way – of keeping my promise not to try to stop him. Nonetheless, I want to make the 7:50 coach to Southampton. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck in the postage stamp-sized village of Redlynch till 11, and with the pubs shut to boot.

I’m halfway there when a bloke in a blue Volkwagen stops and offers me a lift. I climb in, grateful both for the ride and the company. He chatters away amiably about the weather, the latest football news, and politics (such as they are) in Hale Park while I smile and follow along as best I can. My new life as a Squib has only managed to complicate my already-complicated relationship with Muggles and the Muggle world, but it’s also made me feel more invested in trying to make a connection than I’ve felt in years – maybe ever, actually.

He drops me off at The King’s Head with time to spare, apologising that he can’t take me any further but he’s going towards Bournemouth this morning. I tell him not to worry and wave as he departs, feeling oddly at one with the world despite the anxiety tugging at the corners of my thoughts. To my surprise, the Head’s actually open and serving breakfast, so I wander in and order a messy old-fashioned fry, complete with runny eggs. I even manage to drink two cups of coffee and read _The Salisbury Journal_ cover-to-cover twice before the coach arrives.

My overall good mood does not survive the trip to Southampton, however, with the handful of surly commuters jabbering irritably on their mobiles. Plus, the narrow roads we careen along before we reach the A36 make me regret my breakfast choice. Tea and toast would have been far wiser under the circumstances. I lean my head against the window and try not to imagine how Draco is feeling right now as he dresses and makes his way downstairs.

It has always been like this. Even though it was almost always him who came to visit me in my far-flung locations, it was almost always me who left him. We’d stay together until I had to be somewhere else, even though he’d often insist that _this time_ he’d leave before me and not miss any more work. Never ended up that way, though. Turned out it was quite literally impossible for us to say good-bye if the separation was not absolutely imperative. And it was always my job that involved the imperatives, not his. So, time after time, in city after city, I’d wake before dawn and untangle myself from his arms (and sometimes those long legs of his, too), and wrench myself out of our bed. It was those mornings (and this one, too) that I thought I understood how a pearl must feel, ripped brutally from its cosy resting place by the oyster shucker’s uncaring hands. Pearls belong nestled beside their oysters, not strung around some lady’s neck. Just like I belong nestled beside Draco, not gallivanting all over fuck and back looking for Dark wizards trying to cure their children’s illnesses . . . 

I sigh and close my eyes. I’ll have to remember that analogy and tell it to Draco when he gets back from Vienna. Especially since his metaphorical counterpart is a slimy mollusk . . .

If only he could _know_ how hard it is for me to simply let him go like this! After all, he’s told me virtually nothing. Clearly, this has something to do with Alyosha and his treatments, but other than that I have no clue what it entails. Perhaps it involves the sale of more assets, but I doubt it. Draco has been bankrolling everything for months (after he woke and took over from me and Neville and Hermione, that is). True, he’s spared no expense and spent untold thousands of Galleons on everything from specialised healers, to potions masters, to tutors, but he’s never had to travel before to accomplish these ends. At most he’d sent Barnabas. Clearly, this is something different all together. Something more personal than money. And judging from the fact he won’t tell me any details – far more dangerous. Perhaps he and this Vienna bloke are going to meet with a practitioner of the Dark Arts. Or perhaps they’re going to exhume Mefodiy’s body. I shudder, remembering the passage I’d read over Draco’s shoulder about a month ago in one of the books he’d procured through his “Asian connection” in Bangkok.

Whatever it is, he couldn’t have been more clear about not wanting me to question him. And as much as I would like to interrogate him until he cracked, if the past few months have taught me anything, it’s to respect Draco Malfoy’s boundaries. Because all of a sudden, they’ve seemed to spring up everywhere. The same man who used to let me wander around his mind like an interactive museum, now shuts me out of whole thought processes. The same man who used to all but dislocate his hips trying to spread his legs wider for my mouth, my fist, my cock, now won’t let me touch him. The same man who never used the toilet without first asking me if I wanted to watch, now locks the bathroom door. The same man who used to wear his emotions – at least as far as _I_ was concerned – on his sleeve, now struggles (usually successfully) to present me with a dispassionate demeanour. Although, I’ve come to believe that he does, in fact, love me, I still feel like a dog caught inside one of those “invisible” Muggle fences, getting zapped every time I encounter another locked door, another guarded secret, another unconscious flinch . . .

I’d tried in the beginning. Tried everything I could think of to get him to open up to me emotionally and sexually. I’d coaxed and cajoled, teased and seduced, pouted and whined, threatened and raged. Nothing worked, and in the end my constant efforts only served to drive him further inward, push him further away. It became agonizing to get myself worked up to make love to him, to kiss his unresponsive mouth and reach my hand into his pyjamas only to find him completely soft. The few times I tried to suck him to hardness had been the most dramatically unsuccessful. Even after several minutes he’d remained flaccid, and when I glanced at his face, I’d seen that he was covering it with his hands out of sheer mortification and discomfort. Nothing seemed to work and nothing seemed to help, and I’ve had to learn to be sated by the occasional flash of hunger in his eyes or the way his hands tremble sometimes after he’s made me come. Once – other than that time in the rain – he initiated a kiss. I’d been listening with my eyes closed to the new Muggle stereo he’d bought me – a piece by Chopin – and he leaned down over the back of the couch and kissed me softly, startling me out of my reverie. I’d been so surprised, so _shocked_ actually, that I hadn’t known how to respond. Whether to open my mouth and invite him in or stay as I was with my lips closed and resting softly against his. In the end, I’d decided to let him lead, and he stayed as he was, his lips scarcely moving against mine, without a hint of tongue. I’d closed my eyes again and savoured what he offered, and as much as I missed the taste of his mouth, the slick slide of our tongues, I found his soft, slow, dry kisses so exquisitely – so fucking _utterly_ – erotic that after about fifteen minutes, I’d reached down to stroke myself through my jeans. When I came it was after a long sweet build-up. And he’d sighed beautifully against my mouth before pulling away and kissing the tip of my nose, his cheeks flushed carnation pink.

_“You’re so beautiful, Harry,”_ he murmured, and I’d thought for sure that if I could just touch him, if he would just let me, that I would find him half-hard, but when I tried, he shook his head and straightened.

_“Bobbin told me dinner would be served soon,”_ he said. _“I’ll let you get cleaned up and meet you in the dining room.”_

I shift in my seat, my trousers suddenly too tight and my heart squeezed just as uncomfortably between fond recollection and the ever-growing fear that maybe this isn’t temporary. Maybe this isn’t something I can somehow “cure” with the right words or the right touch. I haven’t let myself consider the possibility, but I know that someday I’ll have to. And what then? How long will I be content with chaste kisses and perfunctory blow-jobs before I seek out something – or someone – else?

I push the thought out of my head as soon as it sticks its foot in the door. Despite everything – shit! _because_ of everything – there’s no one I want in my bed, in my arms, but Draco. And until that conviction changes, I have to make do. After all, I haven’t entirely abandoned hope – not after I’d seen the emotions in Alyosha’s eyes when he thought he might see Draco walking through those doors. The two of them _need_ each other. Well, perhaps it’s more complicated for Alyosha, but it is not at all complicated as far as Draco is concerned. It became clear to me a long time ago that Draco will not find peace – or let himself be treated with love or tenderness – until that beautiful petulant little brat with his father’s eyes forgives him. But how to accomplish this? How does one procure the forgiveness of a nine year-old boy whose parents died a violent death before his eyes and whose sisters died . . .

I squeeze my eyes shut, pinching off the memory like a severed vein. I can recall only flashes of that night, but the flashes are technicolour slivers of a nightmare. Draco with his back to me and his wand raised, shaking all over as he cast one Killing Curse after another at the terror-stricken boy before him, missing every time and sobbing so hard it was difficult to imagine he could breathe. Then the explosion of glass and the incandescent shower of hexes and curses, coming from every direction like shooting stars. It had happened so fast, so impossibly fast, that I hadn’t realised Draco had been hit until he was spun around and thrown to his knees. Merlin! The last time I’d seen him he’d been fast asleep in our bed in St. Petersburg! I’d knelt, careful not to wake him, and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, kissed his cheek, his lips, his forehead, praying for the strength to leave him and for the increasingly unlikely chance that I’d see him again . . .

I swallow around the lump in my throat. Draco’s last words that night in Irkutsk had been “forgive me,” but it was I who needed to seek forgiveness, not him. The only reason those children had died was because I’d set in motion an inevitable chain of events when I’d told Mefodiy I would take Ed’s place. It was me – not Draco – who’d recklessly woken the sleeping monster that is the other half, the shadow twin, of our consuming passion. Had I really believed he’d do nothing? Had I really believed he’d shake off my death after a brief mourning period? Would I – _could_ I – have done the same in his stead? Fuck no. Not in a million years. I’d have done everything he did and maybe more. Who knows after all? And who knows, if it had been me instead of Draco, whether I’d have failed to cast that final Killing Curse? Who knows? I might not have hesitated for a second, and then where would we be? There would have been five dead children instead of four. Because often, during those months I sat at Draco’s bedside, I’d thought things. Terrible things. I’d made lists in my mind of atrocities I’d commit, of people I’d sell out without a second thought if that were part of the bargain that would give Draco back to me – if only for a day. He’d begged for my forgiveness not knowing – perhaps not _believing_ – that love made me a monster, too.

And here I’ve been wondering what’s wrong with _him_?

 

I write the letter on my eighth morning in London. After having spent the prior day alone with Alyosha for the first time, touring the Livesey Musuem and eating greasy American fast food, the right words finally materialised in my brain during the night. I don’t bother changing out of my t-shirt and boxers or making a pot of coffee before I grab a sheet of parchment and a quill and begin scribbling madly like a fifth-year on his first O.W.L. exam. An hour later, my hand stained black with ink, I read it through and add the postscript – the handful of words which, at this point, contain my every hope and dream like a stoppered vial. I roll the parchment and go to find Hedwig. Fortunately, she’s asleep on her perch in the livingroom. I tie the missive to her leg.

“Sorry, girl,” I tell her. “It’s a long trip, I know. But it’s important. Don’t let me down.”

She tugs affectionately on my ear and stretches her arthritic wing.

“After this, I’ll never ask you to fly farther than Hermione’s,” I say. “I promise.” I feed her an owl treat. “Now go. And hurry.”

Only after she disappears over the rooftops do I release the breath I’ve been holding and wander into the kitchen to put the kettle on. From the spare bedroom, I hear Alyosha getting dressed and speaking, rather imperiously, in Russian to his stuffed animals. The only thing to do now is to wait and hope that for once – just once – nothing goes spectacularly fucking wrong.

 

Dusk is draping itself like a shroud over the interminably grey streets of the Innere Stadt when I hear the tapping of a beak against glass. I push myself up from my chair and walk carefully to the window to find Hedwig peering in at me.

“Come on in, girl,” I say as she hops onto the casement and clutches it like a branch. “You must be tired. What is he thinking sending you on a transcontinental journey like that?”

She hoots plaintively. Or perhaps I only imagine a doleful note because I’m rather disconsolate myself. I feel her unblinking eyes on my back as I make my way slowly to the desk where I’ve stored the owl treats, and I imagine she’s wondering, in her owl-way, why I didn’t simply summon them . . .

“Here you go,” I say. “Have as many as you like and stay as long as you like. Just please try not to crap on the rug.”

That’s been the worst thing so far. Not being able to clean up a mess with a quick _Scourgify_. Hardly the most romantic aspect of being a wizard, but far and away the most useful on a day-to-day basis. It’s not as though I can expect the cleaning staff of the Hotel Imperial to mop up bird shite – especially since this is Vienna, where something as relatively mundane as dust is viewed with inordinate disdain. No sir. It would have to be me on my hands and knees with a soapy cloth. . .

How ever have Muggles survived all these millennia?

Hedwig clacks her beak and holds out her leg.

“I see you’re all business as usual,” I say, smiling as I unburden her of Harry’s letter. “But seriously, girl. Stay here. At least for tonight. You’re not the owlet you once were, you know.”

She gazes at me, her eyes full of indignation, which this time I’m quite sure I project on to her.

“Right,” I say. “You’re practically a thousand in owl-years. I suppose you’re old enough to make your own decisions.”

I turn my attention to the roll of parchment in my hands.

I’ve been wondering when I was going to hear from Harry, although I’d expected something through the Muggle post. Ever since . . . Irkutsk, he’s eschewed all wizarding modes of communication and transportation – even the ones of which he remained capable, like owl mail. But then again, I hadn’t told him where I’d be staying in Vienna, and only Hedwig could be trusted to find me.

I collapse into my chair, exhausted by the short trip to the window and back. I was told to expect a period of weakness and exhaustion, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear. After all, I spent autumn more or less confined to my bedroom, unable to do so much as descend the fucking stairs. I’m sick to death of feeling palsied and sluggish. Sick of being wrung out by the simplest of tasks. I’d only just begun to feel like myself again when I made the decision to come here to Vienna . . .

I sigh and glance at the letter in my lap. What does it contain? Knowing Harry of late, it could hold just about anything from a cheerful, but tightly coiled, description of his daily activities, to an invective-filled rant. Not that I blame him . . . 

Harry.

The word means both more and less to me than it ever has. It means my bonded-mate, who gave – unknowingly and without his consent – his final ounce of magical ability to save my life. It means the man who seethes with hurt and anger and grief but is terrified of letting me see just how much. It means my torment because what he wants of me – what he _needs_ from me – is more than I can give. It means the familiar stranger who looks at me with a lover’s eyes.

It means my final – my greatest – failure as a man. As a human being. Because only something that is less than human would let the love of his life believe that he no longer cares for him. No longer wants him. No longer breathes in the world through him as though his love were gills and his presence more necessary than oxygen . . .

I sigh, ripping open the seal and unrolling the parchment before I have time to formulate a reason not to.

 

The flight from Vienna to Heathrow is the first time I have ever been on an airplane, and I try hard not to think about the fact that every time I wish to leave Britain in the future, I will have to avail myself of this unwieldy and intensely unpleasant mode of transportation. Fortunately, I have enough knowledge of Muggle customs to have insisted on travelling first class. Moreover, I’d purchased the seat next to mine to ensure that it remained vacant. Nonetheless, the smell and the jostling and frightfully bad wine make for a long three hours indeed.

It takes me nearly as long to get from Heathrow to Covent Garden as it did to get from Vienna to London, and by the time I check into my room at the Montague, I’m exhausted and crabby and longing for a bath. I heave my unshrunk luggage on to the bed and strip off my jacket, but by the time I’ve figured out how to use the hot and cold taps in the tub, I’m ready to give up and just fall into bed. Thank Merlin I had the foresight to arrive a day early and book a room for the night! I look at my watch. Seven o’ clock. If I had arrived tomorrow, I’d be running to the Royal Opera House right now, flustered and tired and generally hacked off at the universe.

There’s an entirely inadequate supply of poor quality whisky in the wet bar, but I drink it anyway. Anything to stop myself from imagining what will happen this time tomorrow. All I can do between now and then is to try to get a sound night’s sleep and eat a meal not requiring the peeling back of a tin cover. I might even try some of the meditation techniques I’d learned in Vienna, but other than that, I’m on my own. Something that, in the past, has not always turned out to be a good thing.

I consider trying to reach Harry on his mobile. If for no other reason than to let him know I made it back to London in one piece. But every time I dial his number, I stop halfway through. I have no idea what it is that I want to say, or what he wants to say – or, for that matter, what either of us _should_ say. I can’t help but think it would be better to let events simply unfold than to try to preface or explain them . . .

I sink into the warm water and close my eyes, and it’s not long before I’m imagining things again despite my determination not to. Although I never lied to him about what I planned to do in Vienna, I never disclosed anything either. Harry has no idea. _No one_ has any idea, except the healers involved – and Barnabas, of course. I smile ruefully, my eyes still closed. I may as well be fucking him, considering he knows more about me these days than my lover does. But then again, I have a difficult time picturing Barnabas in anything but solicitor’s robes or a three-piece pinstripe suit . . .

I’d considered telling Hermione. After all, she and Longbottom would be the people most directly affected outside of myself and . . . and . . .

I scrub my face in my hands. How the _fuck_ is this ever going to work when I can’t even bring myself to say the child’s name? It was only in the past couple of months that I’d even begun to allow myself to imagine his face – or those of his murdered sisters. Before that, my brain had squirmed like an eel on a hook every time it wandered anywhere near the memories of that night.

I take a deep breath and open my eyes. I have given the ultimate gift. Made the ultimate sacrifice. And unlike Harry’s gift to me through the ring I’d placed on his unresponsive finger, I’d _known_ what I was giving, what I was sacrificing. But what I can’t know is how he will respond. How . . . Alyosha . . . I squeeze my eyes shut as the name takes shape in my mind . . . How Alyosha will react when he learns of what he is now capable – and to whom he owes his gratitude.

I lie still in the cooling water for several minutes, just reminding myself to breathe as I imagine I can see my pounding heart shivering the placid surface. Gratitude. My life has been nothing but one long lesson in gratitude and all the many thousands of ways it can ensnare and enslave a person – from a drawing room at Malfoy Manor to the back room at a Berlin sex club. Every time he levitates a feather in Charms; every time he flies a broom; every time he throws a hex, or vanishes a spot, or summons a purloined bottle of Firewhisky, or _Scourgifies_ a cauldron – he will have to think of me. Draco Malfoy. The man whose arrival heralded the deaths of his parents and who murdered his beautiful sisters. The man who stood before him and cast _Avada Kedavra_ s into the face of his tearful pleas. The man who was responsible for tearing him from his home, his family, his country – his entire world – and depositing him in a place half a world away with strangers who neither love nor understand him but feel bound to care for him out of a vague sense of high-minded Gryffindor duty.

Now the universe is on the verge of dispensing the ultimate, soul-killing irony: That man who stole everything from him and broke his heart will be the same man to whom he’ll owe a lifetime of gratitude and loyalty. Har fucking har.

I close my eyes again against the tears that prickle at their corners. How long will it be before I can tell him he’s not alone in hating a universe so devoid of decency that it would force a child to kiss the ring of his tormenter? A lifetime perhaps? Or maybe never. After all, I’ve waited nearly as long for someone to explain it to me. For someone to look at me as anything but a victim or a monster – or a fucking freakish hybrid of both.

_Harry_ , my mind screams at me. _What about Harry?_

I open my eyes and realise that I’m cold and shivering, and wizards who have illegally transferred their magical abilities to an orphaned Squib cannot perform warming charms. My thoughts of Harry will just have to wait.

 

I leave the hotel at five o’ clock and take a long, circuitous route to the opera house, crossing St. Martin’s to Chandos Place and then making my way to Maiden Lane. It’s a Thursday afternoon, and people are just starting to leave their shops and offices. It had rained all morning and through much of the afternoon, but a brisk wind sprang up around three, and now the sky is a washed-out blue, and the sun brushes the tops of the buildings like a painter who’s decided to add a bit of light to a relentlessly drab canvas. I cram my hands deeper into my pockets, my footsteps ringing in the narrow streets, wishing with all my heart that it were fall or winter so that whatever awaits could take place under a canopy of darkness.

Harry had said in his postscript that he’d already purchased the tickets and asked if I got there first whether I’d mind picking them up and meeting him and Alyosha outside, at the entrance to the Covent Garden Market. By the time I stop wending my way down back streets and alleys and gazing sightlessly at window displays, I find the box office just opening.

“Swan Lake?” asks the girl.

“Yes,” I reply. “Under Potter.”

“There you are, sir,” she says, handing me a single ticket.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shocked to discover that I’m both blushing _and_ stammering. “There should be three tickets, I believe . . .” I feel the sweat beading on my upper lip as the full extent of my terror and apprehension begins to dawn on me. But the girl is looking at something on her computer screen and doesn’t seem to notice my discomfiture.

“That’s a ticket for a box, sir,” she says without looking at me. “Grand tier box 43. Do you wish to take a seat before the other members of your party arrive because I could print out additional tickets for them if you’d like?”

I shake my head, feeling stupid in addition to feeling faint with fear.

“No thank you. That won’t be necessary. I hadn’t realised we had a box. He doesn’t generally . . . ”

I trail off lamely when she doesn’t even look away from her computer screen. What the hell is wrong with me, wanting to tell my life story to random Muggles like that?

“Thank you,” I say firmly but unnecessarily and make my way swiftly to the nearest gents where I promptly sick up my sensible lunch.

 

I wait for nearly an hour, drinking glass after horrible glass of Coca-Cola, at one of the outdoor tables while the waitresses scowl at me. The cobblestone piazza is jammed with people – most of them tourists and most of them probably waiting, like me, for the ballet to begin. I watch them without seeing them – their slow purposeless movements having the same soothing effect on me that watching sheep or tropical fish in a tank often does. Everyone seems placidly content and incapable of sudden unanticipated movements, and I feel the underlying anxiety I’ve been experiencing at being unable to use a wand dissipate somewhat. No doubt I’d feel less serene in a crowd of wizards, but then again, I have never felt particularly relaxed in the company of other wizards anyway – for one reason or another.

Enjoying my brief respite from anxiety, I watch absently as a man on the far side of the piazza bends down and tugs at the collar of a boy’s shirt in an obvious effort to straighten it. The boy’s back is to me, and I marvel at how still he stands while the man fusses at him like a mother hen. Not that I’ve had much experience with children – let alone Muggle children – but it seems to me that it’s almost impossible to get them to stand quietly for longer than thirty seconds. After adjusting the boy’s collar, the man drops to his haunches and rolls up the cuffs of the boy’s trousers, stands up to survey his work, and then drops back to his haunches and unrolls them again. I find myself smiling without even realising I’m doing it – that is until the man looks up and somehow – out of the hundred or so people milling about – catches my eye. Or at least it seems like he catches my eye. I can’t really tell with the setting sun reflecting off the lens of his glasses like that . . .

Harry.

Which means that the obedient little boy with the new jacket and too-long trousers whose back is to me is Alysoha Fyodorov.

My mind reels for an instant, and I have to grip the edge of the table to steady myself. Suddenly, as though the switch for a Muggle light has been thrown somewhere in my mind, the piazza with all its quintessential London sounds and smells dissipates like smoke, and I am back in Irkutsk. A hundred memories flash through my mind in a period of seconds – watching the snow shift down from a grey sky through the window of my guest bedroom . . . ; following Alyosha down long hallways, his small hand tugging on mine in his eagerness to show me his nursery, his playroom, his sisters’ sitting room . . . ; Mefodiy leaning back, his hands braced on the bed behind him and his eyes caressing me like hands . . . ; Harry still and quiet and looking so at peace . . . ; shattered glass and the pale frightened faces of children . . . ; three dark figures in a circle of bloody snow . . . ; Mefodiy’s unseeing eyes when – after I’d ceased screaming at him – I pulled his body against mine and kissed his beautiful mouth . . . ; the pocked and catered wall before which the girls had stood, Stunned but still terrified, as I’d killed them one by one, forcing myself with each curse to picture Harry’s face, Harry’s voice . . . ; and then Alyosha, saying my name – the name I’d _asked_ him and his family to call me when the cold ‘Lord Malfoy’ had been more than I could bear – _Draco Draco Draco Draco_ over and over again until I’d heard in the deepest recesses of my brain another plea from another little boy’s mouth, a thousand lifetimes ago . . .

I slam the door closed in my mind so hard that I feel the scaffolding of my thoughts shift on their foundations, and by the time I realise I’ve risen to my feet, I’ve already tripped over the leg of my chair and stumbled gracelessly off the curb and into the square. Time slows to a crawl as I approach them, and I watch Harry take hold of Alyosha’s shoulders and say something firmly before he turns Alyosha’s whole body to face me. I am aware of nothing in the world but that pale face and those terrible knowing beautiful eyes. Those eyes that are in equal parts his father’s and his mother’s – as though in their child they found the perfect union they’d never known . . .

“Alyosha,” I say before I even realise that I’ve spoken, and then, also, “Harry.”

“Draco.”

I tear my eyes from Alyosha to look at Harry’s face. He looks tired but less sad than when I last saw him. I wonder fleetingly how I look to him and whether he can tell . . . whether he can tell that less separates us now. That we’re more the same than – perhaps – we’ve ever been.

“Did you get the tickets all right?” Harry asks with an air of practised jauntiness.

I nod.

“Um, yeah. Right here,” I say, patting my jacket. “Er. Wait. Other pocket.”

I pat my other pocket, and Harry flashes me a knowing grin. I am almost certain that he has never seen me this flustered before. At least not since our “first date” when I showed up at his flat sweating profusely in my bespoke robes and clutching the parchment with his address on it so tightly that the ink had run in the damp of my palm.

“Smashing,” he says with that same note of anxious cheer. “Aly was telling me a couple of weeks ago that _Swan Lake_ is his favourite ballet.”

Harry rests his hand comfortingly on the back of Alyosha’s slender neck, and I suddenly feel bereft of his touch and jealous of the equanimity with which Alyosha greets it, as though it were expected or even his due . . . I bite the thought off at the quick. What the hell am I thinking anyway? I should be glad Harry and the boy have formed a bond of some kind, and if I feel bereft of Harry’s touch? Well, who do I have but myself to blame for that.

“I remember,” I stammer and then immediately regret it as the memory of Alyosha and Anna’s conversation that night at dinner, before Mefodiy arrived, sweeps over me . . .

_“It’s the only ballet you’ve ever seen, silly! Of course it’s your favourite . . .”_

Alysoha, for his part, is simply staring at me as though I were a liquid he could drink or a piece of food he could eat. His gaze contains equal measures of curiosity, dread, anger, hope and stunned disbelief. Harry had told me in his letter that he would prepare Alyosha carefully for this meeting, but I’m sure there was nothing he could say or do to cover every eventuality and every emotion the boy might experience upon seeing my face again. But Harry had also assured me that if he didn’t think Alyosha could handle it then he wouldn’t force him, so I have to assume that he is here because Harry gave him the choice and that he chose to see me . . .

“Well, shall we go in and see if they’re seating people yet?” Harry asks.

I simply nod, and Alyosha tears his eyes from my face to blink up at Harry.

“Or perhaps you’d like something to drink first?” Harry asks him. “It looks as though Draco has a table . . .”

“Had, I’m afraid,” I say, glancing back at the café and the place I’d vacated, which is now full of an American family ordering plates of starters. “The staff was praying for my departure and re-appropriated the table as soon as my arse . . . excuse my language . . . bottom left my chair.”

I can feel myself blushing furiously.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I shouldn’t speak like that in front of a child.”

With refreshing predictability, my words seem to break the spell that Alyosha is under.

“I am not a child, and I know what an ‘arse’ is,” he says angrily, glaring at me.

“Merlin save us,” says Harry, rolling his eyes skyward. “If you’ve picked that word up from me, I’ll never hear the end of it from Hermione. But, seriously, are you thirsty, Aly? Because if you are, we should get something here. It’ll be nothing short of highway robbery once you get inside the theatre.”

“I’m sure we can afford one Coca-Cola, Harry,” I say quickly.

“I won’t drink it unless _Harry_ buys it,” Alyosha interjects, continuing to glare at me. But I find I don’t mind it nearly as much as I minded his reproachful silence.

Harry frowns. “Alyosha . . .”

I hold up my hand and shake my head at him.

“That’s quite all right and more than fair, I’d say.”

Harry’s brows remain furrowed, but he says nothing further. I find myself wondering what he’d expected and realise in the same instant that being the eternal optimist that he is, Harry must have envisioned a brief thawing-out period and then peaceful – if not friendly – co-existence. Not that I think he’s living in a complete fantasy, I just think he greatly underestimated the length of each phase. The thawing-out period could take months, if not years. I am certainly under no illusion that it’ll end tonight – if, in fact, it can even be said to have begun.

We walk without speaking to the piazza entrance of the opera house. Alyosha positions himself so that Harry is between him and me and takes Harry’s hand. Harry gives him a slightly distracted smile, and I realise – rather sadly – that Harry is focused less on the brittle orphan on his right than on my awkward silence on his left. I reach out and give his other hand a squeeze, and for an instant he smiles at me with characteristic brilliance.

The Royal Opera House is as grand and beautiful as any theatre in Europe, and even a reluctant and brooding Alyosha is swept up in the excitement. He trips several times, clutching Harry’s hand, as he gazes up, mouth gaping, at the gilt ceiling with its lights that twinkle and blink like stars in a constellation. Ladies in gowns heading for their boxes smile at him indulgently, and one leans in conspiratorially to tell me in whispered tones what a beautiful boy “my son” is. I smile tightly at her and try to suppress the memory of his _real_ father.

“Well, here we are,” says Harry, gesturing toward a door beneath a large gold “43.” “Our very own box.”

“We had a box back in Siberia,” Alyosha announces. “It was bigger than this one.”

“I imagine it was,” says Harry blandly, and I sense he’s been fielding such references for days.

“I’m sure it was very nice,” I say.

Alyosha stops gaping at the ceiling and resumes glowering at me.

“You could have seen it,” he says. “Mama bought you a ticket.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry.”

He stares at me, but the glare has melted into a kind of needful wonder, and it suddenly occurs to me that I am the only one in his world who knows how his mother wore her hair, or the sound of Anna’s laugh, or Olga’s quiet calming voice, or Nikolai’s teasing wink, or Mefodiy’s tender intensity . . .

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

I want to tell him that I wish it hadn’t happened, that I hadn’t done what I did. But the reason for my acts is sitting right here between us, his eyes soft with sadness and love as he looks at me and reaches for my hand.

A spasm of pain passes over Alyosha’s face, and he snarls at me like a wounded wolf pup.

“I don’t care. I _hate_ you!”

Harry rounds on him, but I grab his hand.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please, Harry. Please don’t say anything. He’s doing the best he can. Can’t you see that?”

“He’s an ungrateful little brat, is what he is,” Harry hisses.

“How can you _say_ that?” I ask angrily. “After everything that happened to him? After everything he’s been through?”

Harry’s lips are pressed in a thin white line, and his eyes radiate nothing but indignation on my behalf.

“Merlin, but you’re a stubborn arse when you love someone,” I say, reaching up to stroke his cheek with my thumb. “But loving me means being patient with him, all right?”

He closes his eyes and twists his head so that his lips brush my fingers. After he kisses them, he turns his eyes back to mine.

“All right,” he says. “I can do that.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, just as the orchestra starts up.

“Would you believe that I have never seen _Swan Lake_ before?” says Harry, speaking to both of us again. “Where’s our programme?”

“Uhm. We had to buy one, and you said ‘no thanks’ to the bloke, remember?”

“What? I thought he was selling newspapers or something.”

I chuckle softly.

“No, those were the programmes.”

“Shit . . . I mean, dang. How the hell will I know what’s going on?”

“I can tell you,” Alyosha and I say at exactly the same time, and Harry turns his head back and forth between us rather comically as he visibly struggles over whose offer to accept.

“We’ll both tell you,” I say, laughing. “Alyosha, why don’t you start?”

He leans forward in his seat and looks at me for a long time across Harry’s chest. It’s not at all clear to me what it is that he’s assessing, but at last he takes a deep breath as though preparing for a recitation.

“There is a prince. He lives in a palace with his mother and father and his tutor . . .”

I swallow hard and lean forward to glance at his face, but he seems blissfully unaware of the parallels to his own life.

“. . . the prince’s mother wants him to find a princess to marry, but the prince does not want a wife. He is having too much fun with his friends. But his mother makes him promise that he will choose a girl at his birthday . . . ” 

He pauses, his brow furrowed in concentration. “I know the word in Russian but not in English.” He wrings his hands with frustration and suddenly turns to me. “You know,” he says urgently. “A big dance with fancy robes . . .”

“A ball,” I say, but he shakes his head adamantly.

“No, this is not a game. There are no balls . . .”

“I understand,” I say. “A big dance with punch bowls and musicians and girls in frilly dresses . . .”

He giggles into his hands.

“That’s called a ball,” I tell him. “Same word as the spherical thing you use to play a game but a different meaning.”

He nods solemnly and repeats the word “ball” three times, cementing it in his memory, before turning back to Harry.

“He promises his mother that he will choose a princess at his birthday _ball_ . . .” he pauses and glances at me, seeking my approval with his gaze, although he probably doesn’t even realise it in all the excitement of educating an attentive Harry. I nod and smile at him, and fleetingly – reflexively – he smiles back.

“So, is that what’s happening now?” Harry asks, pointing at the stage. “Are all those girls princesses? And if so why are they dancing with those other blokes?”

I roll my eyes indulgently.

“That’s the entertainment for the evening,” I say. “Peasants and their . . . peasant partners. This is basically the prince’s stag party. Tomorrow night is the birthday ball. Tonight they’re living it up.”

We watch quietly until the scene changes and the prince and his friend arm themselves with crossbows and make their way stealthily across an abruptly darkened stage.

“Now what?” whispers Harry.

Alyosha looks to me.

“Go on,” I say. “If you know, you can tell him.”

“They are going out to hunt swans,” he says. “The prince’s friend thinks that will make him feel better and not be so sad about having to find a princess.”

“I’d be sad, too, if I had to find a princess,” says Harry with mock solemnity.

“Me, too,” says Alyosha with unfeigned seriousness. 

I turn my head to the side and stifle the bubble of joyous terrified laughter that swells in my heart.

On the stage, the prince, his friend, and about a half-dozen courtiers glide through a simulated forest of shadowed trees and emerge into a clearing lit with silver light. The music drops to a hush of a single quivering violin note, and I feel the theatre and its patrons and the city outside fall away until all that exists in the world is the three of us, the fragile strength of that single note, and the timelessness of the dance – unaided by magic or machines – just human bodies in all their fleeting beauty and strength, like comets blazing in the night sky before burning into nothingness for the rest of eternity.

Suddenly, from either side of the stage, the swans glide in and swirl around the prince and his companions in a snowstorm of filmy white gauze and pale limbs, and with their entrance the music swells. I hear two simultaneous inhalations at my side.

“Wow,” Harry breathes.

The prince raises his crossbow and aims at the swan wearing a tiara, which looks, from where we sit, like a circlet of stars in her dark hair.

“Is he going to shoot her?” Harry asks. But then the prince freezes, and the swan-who-is-now-a-woman floats towards him, her hands held out in a timeless gesture of supplication.

“No,” whispers Alyosha. “She warns him . . .”

“. . . shoot not, else ill fortune doom thee forever more,” I finish for him.

Our eyes lock, and I will myself not to look away as I ride out the storms that rage in both our hearts. At our feet, the tiny white lights indicating the exit flicker on and off, and Harry turns to me instinctively.

“Are you all right?” he whispers.

I shake my head, refusing to look away from Alyosha.

“It wasn’t me.”

I can sense Harry’s confusion, but now is not the time to tell him that I’m no longer capable of magic – wild or otherwise – and that the flicker he saw was actually the first definitive sign that the transference is a success. 

“But . . .”

I shake my head.

“Not now. Later.”

I return my full attention to Alyosha.

“It is true,” he says, but his gaze is curiously devoid of hostility. “What the swan said.”

“I know.”

He stares at me as the orchestra breaks into the soaring refrain that is the signature of this composition. I feel the music sear itself into the raw flesh of my heart, as though Tchaikovsky himself were writing the notes with Umbridge’s quill on a parchment somewhere in hell.

“I know,” I say again. “Believe me. I know.”

“I never want you to be happy again,” he says evenly, in a voice that, when it breaks at puberty, will be identical to his father’s. I feel Harry tense violently, and I grab his hand, squeezing it hard. Alyosha turns away and stares steadily at the stage. Only his quivering chin betrays him. 

I watch the remainder of the second act without seeing it. And when the curtains close for intermission, and people rise restlessly from their seats, I can do nothing more than stare at the place where the dancers had been. I can still see them, like the bright spots behind your lids when you close your eyes after gazing at the sun.

“I am thirsty,” Alyosha announces, and I reach mechanically for my wallet without looking at either him or Harry.

“Here,” I say, handing whichever one of them reaches for it first a twenty-pound note.

Harry clears his throat.

“Do . . . do you want anything?” he asks.

I shake my head, and he turns to leave with Alyosha. But just before he moves out of reach, I seize his wrist and pull so hard that he stumbles when he leans down to hear what I have to say.

“Don’t you _dare_ say a word to him,” I hiss. “Promise me, Harry. I swear I’ll never forgive you if you do.”

He swallows and nods, and then both he and Alyosha are gone.

I raise trembling hands to my face and press the tips of my fingers into my eyes. Painfully. Remorselessly. But the tears come all the same. Squeezing out, hotter than blood, as though giant unseen hands were wringing my heart like a dirty dishcloth. I feel sweat prickle my scalp and dampen my collar as the scalding grief sinks its hooks into my flesh. I lean forward and fold my arms on the bannister, pressing my face into them to muffle the sounds I hear tearing themselves from my chest.

The fingers that brush the back of my neck are tentative, and it’s easy to believe that I’ve imagined them until I realise that they haven’t gone away. Harry, I think automatically, but there is something in the touch that tells me otherwise. I hold my breath.

“I am sorry.”

The voice is small and quiet and scared. I turn my head in my arms to find Alyosha standing beside me, his hand resting so lightly against my skin that it feels more like the touch of a ghost than a living breathing child.

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry to me,” I say, choking on the words. “Ever. You have every right to hate me, Alyosha. Every right in the world.”

“I do not think I want to hate you,” he says in the same small quiet voice. Very slowly, he reaches for my hand, and I sit up, equally slowly, terrified of frightening him with a sudden unexpected movement. But just at the last instant, just before his fingers close around mine, he throws himself into my arms and squeezes me like a vice.

I hold him against me as he weeps into my neck, his whole body wracked with sobs, and I feel my heart shatter into a million glimmering fragments like shards of glass under a brilliant sun. I have never felt so empty and so full, so broken and so whole, so exhausted and so alive – all at the same time. I stroke his head and back, pouring every ounce of myself into the gesture and holding nothing back. Nothing. I would give a limb, an organ – my very life – to comfort him. He clings to me, his face damp with tears and snot, as he melts into my embrace. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I suspect that this is the first time he’s really cried, the first time he’s let himself grieve this openly in another’s presence. I whisper a thousand endearments against his ear – half in English and half in Russian – and I promise him . . . I promise him everything I have to give, everything that is mine and ever will be.

Eventually, the flood of his grief slows to a trickle, and I glance up to find Harry leaning against the door to our box, his arms crossed tightly against his chest, as though he were cold and is trying to keep himself warm. His eyes are bright with tears.

“Thank you,” I mouth.

He smiles and kisses the tips of his fingers before holding them up and waving.

“Hermione will meet you in the market after the performance.”

He unfolds his arms and steps forward, holding out a closed fist. Still cradling Alyosha’s head against my neck, I reach reflexively for whatever it is that he’s offering me. And at first – when the metal, warm from his skin, touches my palm – I think it’s change from my note, but then I realise . . .

Harry steps away from me and reaches back to open the door.

“You know where to find me when – and if – you want to,” he says. “Good-bye, Draco.”

I swallow hard as Alyosha tightens his arms around my neck and glances from Harry’s face to the simple band of silver resting on my open hand. I take a deep breath and meet his gaze once more.

“Good-bye.” My voice is hoarse but steady. Calm. Recognisable at last. “Good-bye, Harry.”

The lights dim, and the orchestra resumes playing as Harry turns and walks through the door, shutting it softly behind him. I press my face against corn-silk hair, breathing in the scent of tears and oatmeal soap and, beneath it all, an afternoon nap in newly laundered sheets.

“Thank you,” I say again. But to whom, or for what, I owe my gratitude, I do not know.

And perhaps, for once, I never will.

 

_The End._


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just couldn't leave you all without a little something more. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I know this story was quite a roller coaster.

Let us live, my darling, and let us love,  
and let us judge all the rumors of the old men  
to be worth just one penny!  
The suns are able to fall and rise:  
When that brief light has fallen for us,  
we must sleep a never ending night.  
Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,  
then another thousand, then a second hundred,  
then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.  
Then, when we have made many thousands,  
we will mix them all up so that we don't know,  
and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out  
how many kisses we have shared. _Carmen Quinque_ \- Gaius Valerius Catullus

 _I fucked a man tonight. He reminded me of you._  

The note is written on a small piece of vellum, no larger than a Chocolate Frog card. I turn it over and over with the fingers of one hand. Like the Muggle magicians with their playing cards. One side is blank, the other almost completely covered with loose, flowing script. He was drunk when he wrote it. I can tell.

The man he’d been with must be wealthy to have vellum just lying around the place, ready and on-hand for a scribbled shopping list or a careless doodle. Not that he, himself, hasn’t enough money to buy a warehouse worth of finest parchment. It’s just not his style. Never was. Never will be.

I hold the card up to the light. Its translucency is marred by a thousand infinitesimal lines, like rivers on a map, except that none of them leads anywhere. They just squiggle from one end of the card to the other. Pointless and meandering. The bloodless veins of a long dead calf.

I flip it through my fingers one last time before crushing it in my fist.

_So long as you didn’t let him kiss you_ , I write on a sheet of linen paper, so thick that it sucks the ink from the tip of my quill with a palpable thirst. _Your mouth belongs to me_.

It’s evening before I see his owl winging its way soundlessly across the expanse of the manor’s lawns like a piece of the night falling early. His reply is even shorter than his first drunken missive.

_I know, love. And fuck you, too._

 

_The Book of Gates_ is my first translation project after transferring my magic to Alyosha. Weeks pass as I stare at my notes. My thoughts are leaden. They fall like stones into the well of my mind and leave no ripple. I try not to panic. I’d come to terms with never again being able to cast a spell or to Apparate, but I hadn’t anticipated this stretch of interminable lethargy. I try to tell myself I’m grieving. That it will pass. I try to come up with new strategies, new routines. I take my books outdoors and sit in the garden. I wake up early. I stay up late. I drink less. I drink more. Nothing at all seems to help.

One evening, Aly wanders into my study. I’m sitting behind my desk with my eyes closed, listening to Mikhail Glinka’s _Ruslan and Lyudmila_ , and trying to picture the first gate through which the dead pass on their way to the underworld. Cracking my eyelids open, I watch as Aly wanders around the room, peering at the titles of the books on the shelves and picking up things randomly and setting them down again. Ruslan is on the verge of entering the enchanted castle and losing all memory of his lost lover for whom he’s sought for so long, when Aly asks, “what is this?”

I open my eyes all the way and squint across the dimly lit room to where he stands holding up a small rectangular object in his hand.

“It’s a Dream Box,” I tell him.

“What does it do? Can I open it?”

“Sure,” I say. “Just be careful. It’s full of ground-up dreams.”

He looks at me skeptically but nonetheless eases the lid off with careful attention.

“There aren’t any dreams in here,” he says, peering into the little box. “This is nothing but snuff tobacco like my uncle in St. Petersburg used to have.”

“Well, if you’re so inclined, you can, in fact, take the dream grounds like a snuff,” I reply. “Or you can brew them like loose leaf tea. You can probably even stir a pinch into a glass of pumpkin juice, if you prefer.”

“I want to try it,” he says. “Can I?”

I smile and shake my head. 

“Sorry, _miliy moy_. Those are my dreams. We’ll get you some of your own, all right?”

“Can’t I have some of yours. Just a little bit?” he wheedles, knowing that I’ve yet to perfect the art of saying “no” to him. But I stay firm on my refusal, and at last he gives up and wanders over to the glass case that houses my grandfather Abraxas’s impressive collection of cursed Khukuri knives.

I stare fixedly at the tiny box. Harry had given it to me before leaving England on his first assignment. The dreams it contains are his. Removed, lovingly, one by one and placed in a Distilling Pensieve, later to be dried like leaves of thyme and crushed with a pestle and mortar. I’d used them sparingly, not wanting to run out. Just enough for an hour’s sojourn into Harry’s nocturnal thoughts, the sound of his sleeping breath just whispering beneath the images like the waves in a seashell. Eternally variable. Like Harry, himself.

And just like Harry, they are lost to me now. As so much seems to be.

I close my eyes wearily. The first gate to the underworld belongs to a goddess whose name, translated literally, means Splitter of the Heads of the Enemies of Ra. I imagine her, squatting on her throne, a long blade raised to cleave another skull and her eyes rolling like Bellatrix’s used to just before the end. And for a moment, I envy them, those faceless “enemies of Ra.” How good it would feel if someone would crack my head like an egg and release these thoughts, these fears, these stillborn dreams! And leave me empty and ready to be filled with something different. Something new.

I start as Aly unexpectedly hoists himself into my lap and wraps an arm around my neck. He’s taken to sucking his thumb, a habit that drives my mother wild but which Hermione assures us is only temporary. I turn my face into his hair and breathe. He smells like nothing familiar, and I feel suddenly – and oddly – unburdened. Reaching around his narrow back, I find my quill and dab its tip into the ink pot. By the time Bobbin comes in with milk and biscuits, I’ve filled a fourteen-inch scroll and am starting on a second.

 

Sometimes, on the nights Hermione and Longbottom have Aly, I go to the clubs in London. Partly to assure myself that he isn’t there, but also partly out of a need to revisit the obsessions of my past. I sit for hours in filthy and dilapidated vinyl chairs in black-lit rooms nursing warm pints and trying to remember. The boys who find their ways into this carnal labyrinth glance at me warily, but not without curiosity. I never speak to them. Never invite them to straddle my lap and feed their tongues to me like overripe fruit. I watch them disinterestedly. Much like my father used to watch me. I know they think I may be dangerous, and this both repels and excites them. But I’ve been interested to discover that, in fact, I am not dangerous at all. I’m not even tempted to touch them. It’s enough just to watch. To simply watch and not want in return. Lately, I’ve come to realise that these excursions are like archaeological digs in reverse. Instead of removing the desert, a teaspoon at a time, to reveal the bones of a life under an eternity of sand, I feel as though I’m filling in a vast and measureless crater – one that I perhaps once believed to be bottomless, but which now turns out to be as finite as everything else.

A discovery for which I am glad, indeed.

I lift my glass of piss-warm beer and toast the faceless dark-haired boys who used to rule the corners of my every thought like pretty tyrants. I am no longer shackled by their beauty. The chains have rusted beyond repair. I slip through a door into the dark puddle-strewn street, knowing that I’ve given away nothing of myself that matters. And received nothing in return.

When I return to my hotel room, I pour myself a glass of Scotch and pen a brief note on the complimentary postcard.

_The quail with candied pears at Petrus is delicious._

_I’ve decided that I hate the Tube._

_The cherry trees are beautiful this year._

_The Philharmonic is having a very disappointing season. Their new artistic director is an idiot._

_I miss you._

_I love you._

_Come home._

 

The party is unspeakably dull, but there are other children present, and Aly seems to be enjoying himself, so I stay. He has bullied a younger boy into playing Aurors (his new favourite game ever since Longbottom took him to his office for Invite Your Young Wizard To Work Day). Wanting to be on hand in case of an emergency (always a distinct possibility where Aly is concerned) but not wanting to disrupt their play, I trail them at a respectable distance. Which is how Harry finds me, leaning against the door jamb of an ornate Victorian era conservatory, gazing up distractedly through lush greenery and the glass-panelled ceiling at snow flakes toppling lazily from a lowering sky.

I’d been thinking about how my father had always forbade season-altering magic at the manor – even in late March, when the whole world seemed to be straining, like a dog on a leash, toward spring. _Unnatural_ , he’d said. It was the same adjective he used for the old Ministry building’s fake weather – or anything else that camouflaged reality as fantasy. _That’s the problem with modern-day wizards,_ he’d said. _They think magic is nothing but a convenience. An escape. But it is more than that, Draco. It is a responsibility. A sacred obligation._

_A true wizard must never lie to himself. To others, if need be. But never to himself._

Somehow this admonishment could expand to encompass my mother’s desire for daffodils a week early, but not to the way he twisted his eyes from mine whenever I caught him watching me, just like Vincent used to twist and break his Licorice Wands into tiny fragments before eating them, one by one . . . 

“Draco.”

Still resting my head against the jamb, I turn to look at Harry. We stare at one another for several moments, and I note how his hand tightens into a fist and then relaxes, only to tighten again reflexively. I wonder if it stems from desire or rage. Or both. Neither of us smile at each other.

“He’s grown,” Harry says at last with a stiff, stilted nod toward the place where Aly and his companion crouch beneath the canopy of a cinnamon fern, sticks clutched in their hands as they stalk some mysterious fugitive from justice.

I nod and then croak, “Yes,” before clearing my throat and trying again.

“Yes, he has.”

Harry presses his lips into a thin expressionless line and stares unseeingly at the two boys.

“And his hair’s grown darker.”

I turn to look at Aly as well, and Harry and I watch him for another couple of minutes.

“That’s not uncommon,” I say. “For someone with dark hair to be toe-headed as a young child.” I pause for a moment before adding, “His father had black hair, you know. Just as black as your own.”

The remark has its intended effect. I feel Harry’s stiffen beside me, and when I turn to meet his gaze, his eyes are angry and bright.

“You’d know, of course,” he says recklessly.

I nod and hold his gaze.

“I never denied that I desired him.” 

He blanches at my honesty.

“But I do not love him. He is my child’s dead father. Nothing more, but nothing less. Do not turn him into something he isn’t because you’re afraid to be with me.”

He’d dropped his eyes as I spoke, but with my last words they flick back up to mine, startled.

“I’m not afraid to be with you! It’s the other way around! It’s you who’s afraid to be with me!”

I turn away and stare up through the ceiling at the snow, feeling as though I’m straddling two worlds at once. On one side of the glass, condensation beads and drips like sweat and on the other, the thinnest coat of ice is starting to form.

“You can’t always look at him and see his father, Harry,” I say at last.

He is so close now that I feel his sigh brush against my neck. I hold my breath, my blood thrumming like the sap of an ancient tree.

“I never saw his father in him. I’ve always only ever seen you.”

Before I can respond, Aly’s pale blue eyes suddenly find us, and he leaps out from beneath the fern, his game and his companion both forgotten in an instant.

“You left us at the ballet,” he says mutinously.

Harry looks entirely caught-out, and I find myself laughing unexpectedly and long.

“It’s true, Potter,” I say. “You left us.”

“That was more than a year ago,” he says rather indignantly, but his answer only serves to exacerbate the underlying crime.

“Precisely,” I reply.

“Precisely,” Aly parrots with perfect comedic timing.

 

 

It takes me a long time, but eventually I’m hard enough that I think I can come. I close my eyes and picture Harry.

“That’s right! Fuck me hard!”

My eyes snap open, and I backhand the bloke beneath me across the mouth.

“I told you not to speak,” I hiss, but he just stares up at me with lust-filled and defiant eyes. I brace my hands against his shins and push back and off him, the chains of the leather sling jangling in the hovering silence.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

I cross the room, my softening cock smacking heavily against my thighs as I walk. Reaching the mahogany cabinet, I open the doors and retrieve a towel, which I toss on to his come-spattered stomach with a dismissive flick of my wrist.

“You’re a lousy bottom,” I tell him.

“Then let me top.”

I pause from wiping the sweat from my face.

“Not a chance,” I say. “Suggest that again, and you’re never coming back here.”

He grins and lets his eyes sweep over my body.

“Is that your charming way of asking me for another ‘date’?” He makes finger-quotes around the last word.

A wave of disgust washes over me, leaving me feeling tired and drained in its wake.

“Sure,” I say resignedly. “Whatever.”

 

 

Aly’s enthusiasm for all things Quidditch is infectious. I buy us season tickets for the Montrose Magpies, and we go to every game, arriving early and leaving late, usually with Aly fast asleep on my shoulder as we wait for the car to come round and pick us up.

“I’d always wished your father would have done something like that for you,” says my mother one morning at breakfast after Aly had gulped down his eggs on toast and raced back up to his room to get dressed for that day’s game.

I lower _The Prophet_ and send her a curdled look.

“Can you really imagine father at anything but a World Cup game?”

She sighs exasperatedly. 

“It wouldn’t have killed him,” she says. “And it nearly killed you every year when you asked and he refused.”

I fold the paper and reach for the teapot.

“I have no memory of ever having asked him to get Quidditch season tickets.”

She frowns at me, her expression suddenly serious.

“How can that be? You asked every year until you were fifteen, and every time he said no, you cried your little heart out.”

I shrug apologetically.

“Sorry. I have no recollection of any such thing.”

Her frown deepens.

“Are you suggesting that I’d make up such a thing?”

I settle my teacup in its saucer and glance at her, startled by her biting tone.

“No, of course not!”

She turns away to look out the window as the gardener trudges past, levitating a sapling with its roots wrapped in burlap and bound with rope. Before I can ask her what it was that had so upset her, Aly comes barrelling back into the room.

“Hurry up!” he says. “We’ll miss the warm up!”

“Little boys do not order adults about like house-elves,” replies my mother, on cue. I push back my chair and come around the table to kiss her cheek, my throat feeling oddly lumpy as though I’d neglected to chew my toast properly before swallowing it.

“We’ll see you later,” I say gently, pressing a second kiss against the part in her hair, just for good measure. She squeezes my hand and then lingers a moment before releasing me.

“You boys have fun,” she says, her voice husky.

“Draco is not a boy,” says Aly, bouncing impatiently from foot to foot in the doorway. “He’s too old to be a boy.”

“Draco will always be my little boy,” she says absently. “No matter how old he gets.”

I go to Aly and place my hand on his shoulder to steer him out the door. When I turn back to look at her, my mother is still staring straight ahead at my empty chair – the chair that used to be my father’s.

That night when we return, there is a letter from Harry propped against the lamp on my desk in the study.

 

 

Harry tells me that he sometimes finds himself feeling jealous of Aly. He tells me that he sleeps more soundly without me beside him, but not better. He tells me that he let Nott suck him off the night before his and Lovegood’s wedding and that it was “weird.” He tells me that he didn’t think he could survive losing me, but he’s relieved that he has. He tells me that I made him laugh so hard one time at a café in Budapest that he pissed himself. He tells me that he’s always hated the way I speak so arrogantly to hotel concierges. He tells me that the second time he smelled _Amortentia_ , the scent of my sweat overpowered every other. He tells me that I’m the cleverest person he knows, aside from Hermione, of course. He tells that he thinks he may never really have known me at all. He tells me that I tilt my head to the left when I’m interested in the person I’m talking to and to the right when the person bores me. He tells me that he wanks to thoughts of Mefodiy fucking me and me coming harder than I ever came with him. He tells me that the sound of my laugh at a party makes his heart stop. He tells me that he’s bored at his new job; that his neighbour is a passably good pianist; that he’s decided he likes aubergines. He tells me that my navel has always scared him because every time he sees it, he remembers that I was born and that someday I will die.

He writes me letter after letter full of emotional flotsam and jetsam, and I, amazingly and much to my own surprise, respond in kind.

 

 

Aly sometimes cries at night. I’ve asked the house-elves to alert me when he does, even if I’ve already retired to my room. I go to him and lie down on his bed beside him. Sometimes he curls against my chest like one of those comma-sized tadpoles in the gelatinous eggs we find in the pond every spring. Other times, he turns his back on me, cringing away angrily from my hand if I reach out to try and stroke his hair. He cries so hard it makes him sweat, and his pyjamas cling damply to his shoulder blades, reminding me in my sleep-hazed mind of the folded wings of an origami crane.

One night, he cries so loudly and for so long that my mother hears. The door creaks open softly behind me, and then the mattress dips as she sits down.

“Poor wee laddie,” she whispers in her family’s ancient brogue just like she used to with me when I was a boy. 

“Mummy!” he calls, lifting his wet face from his folded arms, and she literally flies to him, gathering him against her and rocking his whole body.

“He thinks you’re Alexandra,” I whisper.

My mother looks up at me over Aly’s head of newly dark hair.

“No, he doesn’t,” she whispers in return. “He knows who I am. A child never mistakes his mother for someone else, or someone else for his mother.”

I push myself up and lean against the headboard as she continues to rock him against her breast and trail her fingers through his sweat-damp hair.

“That doesn’t make you . . .?”

“That doesn’t make me what?”

“I don’t know. Feel strange, or something?” I ask awkwardly.

She frowns, thinking for a moment.

“No. Why should it?”

_Because you’ll never be anything but a poor substitute for the real thing_ , I think. But I don’t even have to hear the words out loud to know that they’re mistaken. Nevertheless, she reads my mind.

“We look for certain kinds of love,” she says. “A mother looks for the love of a child. The child, likewise, looks for the love of a mother. Just as a husband looks for the love of his wife, and a wife for the love of her husband. It’s like breath, Draco. Like bread and water.”

“And where does that leave me, then?”

The bitterness in my voice surprises me. She reaches out to stroke my cheek with the backs of her fingers.

“Who is your breath, Draco? Who is your bread? Your water? Stop making excuses and go to him.”

“Or what?” I ask defiantly. “Or go lonely and unloved?”

“Or go hungry,” she replies frankly. “It’s your choice.”

 

 

This time it is me who stumbles on him unaware.

He’s down by the lake, sitting with his back against a tree, gazing out over the blue-black water. Before him, the grass flattens beneath a steady easterly breeze and then rights itself again. I stand watching him for several minutes. Despite the magnificence of the scenery, he is gazing down at the ground between his feet. The white skin of his neck, between his collar and his hair, breaks my heart.

“Harry.”

When he turns, it is not with a startled jump. This is no reverie that I’ve surprised him from. He looks at me, his face calm and _present_ , his expression without ardour or blame or expectation of any kind.

“May I join you?” I ask, with a nod of my chin toward the patch of grass beside him.

He smiles invitingly, if not enthusiastically.

“Be my guest.”

I sit down and lean back against the tree, careful not to brush his shoulder with mine, but equally careful not to make my avoidance obvious.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” he says.

“I didn’t think you would be, either,” I reply. “Our year’s reunion cannot be any less difficult for you than it is for me.”

He acknowledges my covert reference to Weasley with a solemn nod but says nothing in reply. The wind ruffles his fringe, and suddenly, as though it were a move that had already been choreographed, I am leaning over and kissing the corner of his mouth. I feel it twitch with a smile.

“What does Aly make of the place? Is he excited to be starting here himself next year?”

“He says he is. In fact, he tells me and Hermione all the time that he can’t wait to go away. But I don’t believe him, entirely. In fact, I think the prospect terrifies him as much as it excites him.” I pause before adding, “much as it did me.”

“This place was my dream come true,” he says. “The only thing that terrified me about it was the possibility that it could be taken away as suddenly and unexpectedly as it’d been bestowed.”

He turns and smiles at me.

“That sounds as though I could be talking about you as much as about Hogwarts. Or magic in general.”

“I’m not magic,” I say without really thinking. His sudden uncharacteristic display of vulnerability is almost as startling to me as my kiss must have been to him. “I’m just me. And I’m not a nice person. I’ve done many things that I regret . . .”

“. . . And hopefully even more that you don’t.”

He leans forward and presses his lips against mine.

“Shhhhh. Don’t say anything. I really don’t need you to.”

Once upon a time (and not even that long ago), I would have likely found this demand offensive and replied with a tart little barb of my own. But now, after months of letters, my mind fills in the words he hasn’t said. _Because I already know_. And instead of responding with words, I open my mouth and tilt my head for his kiss.

“Do you mean this?” he murmurs. “Is this what you want? Tell me now, because if we start this, I won’t be able to stop . . .”

“Shhhhh.”

I push back against his mouth, hungry for the taste of him. Taking his hand in mine, I twine my fingers through his and press his palm between my legs, giving him permission to imagine more than I can give him right here, right now. He moans something around my tongue and kneads me through my trousers.

“Come back to me,” I say. “Whatever it was that you or I or both of us thought I needed to find either can’t be found or never existed in the first place. Come back to me, Harry.”

My knees fall open to his touch, and he cups his whole hand around me, pressing the heel of his palm against the head of my cock. I lean back against the smooth-skinned bark of the tree. The light glancing off the water hurts my eyes, and from somewhere behind us, too close for comfort, comes the sound of voices. Nevertheless, I am arching into Harry’s caress like the grass bending in the wind, like a drawn bow, like the impossible curve of a swan’s neck, and he is whispering something into my hair that sounds as simple and as perfect as _yes_.

 

_fin._


End file.
